


Perspective

by Alchemyst



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Amélie gets to go home., F/F, I'm just going to fill in these tags later, It might get angstier from here it might not, Plenty of salt to go around, Possible junkenstein's revenge easter egg in there, Sombra disregards allegiances to acquire currency, Sombra has 0 respect for personal space, Sombra's escape plans actually work, Talon redemption AU, This one focuses on Widowmaker, Widowmaker does weird shit at 3 am, Widowmaker is a sucker for classic novels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-01-10 13:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12300186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alchemyst/pseuds/Alchemyst
Summary: Noun: the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful relationship.Widowmaker never really thought much of life. Killing made her feel something, Talon provided her with that feeling when she did as they told her, and took it away when she did something that displeased them. She never thought there were other options for her besides being a puppet until Sombra opened the door and shoved her outside.Alone, confused, and in a world that isn't quite ready to let go of the woman she was to accept the woman she's slowly becoming, she desperately needs a friend.Tracer's not doing so hot. UN officials are breathing down her neck reguarding recent activities that "Should be left to the authorities", Overwatch can't seem to get its' shit together reguarding anything, and her constantly jumping around so much and being so distant eventually broke ties with Emily. To top things off, her worst enemy then decides to show up at her doorstep and claims to be a better person.They're not sure what brought them together, or what kept them there until ties were formed, but one thing's for certain: Like it or not they need one another. If not for their own sakes, then for the world's.





	1. Bargains

**Author's Note:**

> This is actual trash I wrote at 3 AM but I sincerely hope you enjoy it.  
> Forgive me if things develop too slowly I want to steadily build the plot so this lasts more than 10 chapters.

Darkness. A cold, black nothingness that seemed to engulf her every time she closed her eyes. Contrary to popular belief, and the general idea of the concept in general; Widowmaker never truly slept, she simply allowed herself to slip from the waking world into the ever-present void of partial consciousness. It was almost akin to standing in a barren black room, where it was deathly silent, but in a way that made it a deafening noise at the same time, it was meant to rejuvenate her and allow her body to rest and recover after particularly strenuous missions, but her mind remained perfectly alert , ready for any physical or auditory cues that might yank her from her imposter of sleep. She understood why she was like this, Talon needed her functioning, but without the regular human process of dreaming that might slip ideas into her head, remind her of people she had lost, or call back guilt she had long deemed herself incapable of. After all, she was a weapon, why did she need something as flawed and beautifully human as dreams?

The door to her quarters slammed open, the metal of the handle making a hideous bang against the walls and jolting her from her trance. Sitting up like the good soldier she was, the sniper trained her golden gaze on whomever had decided to enter her room at this ungodly hour. As the door slowly swung shut, gradually obscuring the sliver of harsh, florescent light from the corridor outside, she scanned the figure of the person standing in her doorway. Hair swept to one side, ridiculous coat, and atrocious footwear (if one could even call it that) to match, Sombra was identifiable at once as she took a step over to the light switch by the door and flicked it on, her face scrunching up in disgust once the room was fully illuminated. "I would say you need to do something with this room, but after tonight, you're not going to need it." She was nonchalant about this, strolling over to the metal bookcase, or rather, the metal shelf she had designated to be a bookcase; shoved against a wall and glancing over the titles of the few novels Talon allowed her to keep on them. Mainly mysteries, she had always been fond of those if she remembered correctly, but a few works from the southern gothic genre sat on the shelf as well. Sombra looked over these with an expression somewhere between judging and unimpressed, clicked her tongue once, then turned away from the shelf entirely.

"What do you want, Sombra?" Her tone was frigid, unwelcoming of the intruder as she stalked around the perimeter of the room before settling in the singular chair she kept sitting at her desk. The hacker seemed relaxed as she looked around from her new vantage point in the seat, glancing over a few of the reports Widowmaker had sitting on the desk, eventually fixing her deep purple gaze on the sniper with one of those grins that sent an annoyed twinge down her spine. It was just so knowing, yet carefree; it was the expression of a woman who knew she'd get what she wanted regardless of how it inconvenienced others, and was quite proud of that fact. "What I want? No no, Amiga, Tengo algo tu quereré. Just hear me out on this one, since I know it's outside of the neat little boxes you like to draw for yourself concerning your life choices." She waited a moment for confirmation that Widowmaker understood, but the sniper remained silent and as stiff as if she were in the presence of a senior officer, needless to say there was a slight tension as they waited, golden eyes meeting purple ones in a silent contest of seeing who would crack first. Giving up, Sombra leaned back in the chair with a disappointed sigh and covered her face with one of her hands. "Okay look, I've used Talon for everything I can. Now I need to get it out of the way to move into bigger things. However, I still have use for both you and our edgy friend with the mask, so you're going to help me. ¿Comprendes?" Her tone was a little exasperated, giving the Frenchwoman an annoyed stare. Amélie's lip curled slightly, her eyes narrowing into golden slits as she stared down the hacker. "I am loyal to my agency, if I didn't know any better, I would just turn you in now and have you executed." She practically spat the last part, the tension that resulted could be felt as a blanket wrapping around them both as they stared each other down. Sombra stood, looking more than a little ticked, and confidently strolled over to Widowmaker, brandishing a small holopad that she clicked on, then proceeded to show the sniper the screen of; mostly everything was a hue of purple or hot pink, but neatly organized on the screen were files of various Talon agents, Sombra tapped one with her nail, and suddenly the sniper was staring at a picture of herself and from what she could read as the text was not only small, but arranged into decently sized paragraphs, greatly detailed information about the Frenchwoman, perhaps more than she knew about herself even.

"Look, we can do this the nice and easy way where you agree to help me now, and when things come falling down, I give you a copy of these files and a generous sum of money, and to give you peace of mind, I terminate my own edition of these. You're then free to do whatever until I need a favor." Sombra shut off the holopad, clipping it back to her belt before continuing with a smile that could probably rival one of her own in coldness, "Or, you can forcibly be dragged into this, and you'll crash and burn like everyone else at the end. And trust me Araña, the UN might put some people to death to show an example, but you'll get a much worse fate if some of those Mondatta activists get their way. Now what's more important, your life, or your allegiance to Talon?" Two violet eyes bored into her own, and after a moment, Widowmaker reluctantly lowered her head with a grimace, staring at the floor between them "What do you need me to do?" Her voice was steely, she still refused to keep the defeat she felt from permeating into it. Sombra chuckled quietly, gently patting the sniper on the head twice before speaking, sounding much more self confident than she did before if such a thing was possible. "Good choice. I'll keep you updated, but most likely it'll just be guarding me to our escape. We meet up with Gabe, and I get you both out of here and drop you off wherever the fuck you want me to until I need your services again. The drop is happening later today, so meet me around the interrogation rooms at 7:00 Got it? Great! Bye amiga!" Amélie looked up in time to see Sombra cheerily stroll over to the door, swing it open, and headed out into the hallway humming a Spanish song she didn't know the name of that got fainter as she strolled, and eventually cut off entirely as the door clicked shut behind her.

Left alone in her room, Amélie slid the thin sheets covering her off and stood from her cot, out of habit, she then proceeded to quickly make it up. The Frenchwoman examined her quarters as if searching for a mess Sombra had made, then headed over to the locker in the corner that functioned as a closet of sorts. Exchanging her spare casual uniform for her iconic spandex, Widowmaker admired herself in the small mirror she'd shoddily taped to the inside of the door for a moment. She looked the same as she always did, it brought a small smile to her face. She then went about throwing a bag together, a small duffel meant for carrying her rifle and supplies that went along with it, which obviously went into it, her few outfits, and after some consideration, she picked up one of the novels sitting on the metal shelf and tucked it in neatly ontop of her folded clothes. With her bag packed and neatly sitting on her cot, she checked the time to see how much longer she'd have to wait before heading out to meet Sombra.  
It was 1:44 AM.

What do you do when you cannot sleep but like Widowmaker, have no hobbies besides shooting things?  
You shoot things. That's what.  
The training range was a ghost town, the bullet riddled targets at the end of the range that had yet to be exchanged with new ones for the next day stood like broken guards over the dark room. She flicked on the lights and settled for one of the model rifles hanging on the wall, it was slightly lighter than her Widow's Kiss, and the butt felt unnatural against her shoulder since she was so used to her own rifle's, but soon enough she was firing away at the targets, falling into a quiet rhythm that to her, rivaled the classics in beauty and intricacy. Eventually, all the spots worth firing at on the targets were riddled with bullets, and the Sniper returned her rifle to where it formerly sat on the wall. She didn't bother changing out the targets, that was beneath her. Out in the corridor, a glance at the electric clock (Amélie likened it to a giant alarm clock, as it both looked like one, and doubled as the speakers for this base's alarm system.) revealed she had killed a good two hours in there. Well, she had another ten minutes before the base really started picking up from those who had early morning missions, so she decided to return to her room once more, retrieve her bag, and pick up a novel, worn from both use and the fact she had collected it from the site of a mission, it was under a bit of scaffolding that had fallen, and it took her a good three minutes to wrench free without crushing her fingers, but it was worth it. The book itself was about a young woman trying to start anew after her city got bombed in World War II. She quite liked the style of writing, and she'd read it numerous times without really getting a theme from it, but then again, she was a sniper, she didn't care for the level of literary analysis some people did.

There were a few areas where Talon agents were actually encouraged to sit and socialize, and those areas weren't designed for said agents to loiter and risk being late for a mission. Being with the organization for as long as she had, she knew all of the ones in the bases she was normally stationed at like the back of her hand. Following the narrow corridors across the base, she finally pushed open one of the doors and entered the easternmost lounge. There was an agent inside already; trying to get the finicky coffee maker to work, upon seeing Widowmaker, he cast his gaze downwards at the groaning machine. The gesture brought a smirk to the sniper's face as she entered. It seems her very presence was enough to unnerve others still. The seats in the room didn't look the most comfortable, they were really just some chairs drawn around a singular, metal coffee table, but the Frenchwoman sat in one, and opened her novel...

It was a wailing alarm that jolted her from her trance a few hours later. And like the other two agents who had entered the room sometime before, Widowmaker was instantly on her feet and out the door. Unlike the panicked operatives though, the Sniper strode confidently down the hallways, tinted red from the blaring, flashing alarms stationed in them. She skirted around a few operatives who tripped and dropped their files, pretended to listen to a barked order from one of her superiors who had taken to one of the corners as if it would save him, and rounded the final corner to the interrogation hall.

Sombra and Reaper were already there, the former, despite being in handcuffs, looking quite smug about the situation. The latter- who was leaning on the wall- was hard to tell, his mask and voice generally prevented Widowmaker from gauging anything besides bitterness from him. The hacker looked over and gave her a grin and a wink "A little late, Araña. But I'll let it slide. It's given me time to admire my work." The hacker nodded to Reaper, who stood and took his place by her right side. "Just walk on my left, we're heading to the roof." Judging by her tone, it wasn't a suggestion as much as it was an order, so Widowmaker kept a straight face, and fell in on Sombra's left as she and Reaper passed her. A few of the operatives scurrying to and fro down the corridors cast dirty looks in Sombra's direction, but most were too preoccupied to even pay them much heed. At the end of the central corridor, Reaper pushed open the door to the stairwell and the three started ascending the metal staircase when suddenly a barking voice tailed after them.

"What do you two think you're doing?!? The prisoner cells are that way." It was some superior or another, to be frank, Widowmaker really only paid attention to the names of certain operatives that were more stylized like herself or Reaper, the others were either sir/ma'am (superiors) or idiot (underlings). Sombra looked freaked out, clearly not considering the fact they might be stopped, and Reaper cleared his throat like he was about to say something, but Widowmaker jumped in quickly, locking her cold, hard gaze onto that of the supervisor's, "We have direct orders from Akande to bring this one to him. He doesn't want to risk her escaping a cell. Do you want us to keep him waiting?" The superior looked slightly suspicious still, but not wanting to risk Akande's wraith, backed away and let the door click shut behind him. Sombra let out a small chuckle, half nervous half relieved from what she could gauge, as they resumed climbing the stairs, "That was great Araña! I knew you had a rebel operative in you." Widowmaker rolled her eyes slightly at the remark, "I did what would keep us living." Reaper shook his head softly as they approached the door to the rooftop access, "We don't have much time, chances are that guy went to call Akande and make sure we were doing as we said." Reaper growled. Sombra huffed, her gaze riding on Reaper with a slight look of disapproval, "There's no need to hurry." The mercenary either didn't hear her in time, or just didn't care, as he punched the access code, and the door to the roof slid open.

The rooftop view was gorgeous, not that Widowmaker really paid mind to it, the sun had just barely peeked over the horizon, and cast softly colored bands of light across the sky. Sitting on the roof with the three former operatives was a black Helicopter, an agent -a rookie judging by his uniform- standing outside nervously, as if worried about what might happen to him if caught. Sombra held her arms up to Reaper, and from the corner of her eye, Amélie watched as they had a brief conversation in Spanish while he undid her handcuffs. All she caught was something about "Araña", which she knew was referring to her, and a hand instinctively flew to her duffel where her rifle sat securely. Sombra said something to Reaper that made him quiet down, and soon she approached the Sniper before gesturing to the helicopter. "Alright, vamanos, I told you I'd give you a lift didn't I?" For a moment, she watched the hacker from a narrowed gaze, but slowly, her hand moved away from the duffel's zipper, and she turned to face both her and the helicopter. Reaper was presumably already seated inside, as she couldn't spot him, but the agent flying the thing was circling the machine, making a pre-flight check. "I wish to go to Annecy then. You can drop me at the outskirts, I can find my way to where I need to go from there." Her tone was cold, devoid of anything that might give Sombra leverage over her real desire to return to that city over any other place in her home country. However, perhaps the hacker knew too much, or was just an expert at reading people, as a small smirk appeared on the Latina's face as she began strolling towards the waiting machine. "I have a chaffeur on standby to take you to Chatêau Widowbitch. I do my reading, Araña." Amélie scowled lightly, but tailed the hacker to the waiting helicopter, stepping into the machine and taking the seat next to Reaper. Sombra made it more than obvious she'd be sitting alone by taking the middle seat on the opposite side, crossing her arms with a self satisfied smirk as she leaned back in the seat as much as it would allow.

The helicopter itself wasn't anything fancy in Widowmaker's opinion, it was a typical craft with about 6 leather seats, and no windows save for the ones in the cockpit for missions with a small staff, though she couldn't recall ever being on one for that purpose. She typically went by hovercraft when it came to aerial transportation, they were much quieter and could carry as many units as they needed for any given situation. She was just fastening her seat belt when Sombra cleared her throat and motioned to the two racks of headphones situated on the walls of the craft. "If you care about your hearing, I'd take one." Sombra suggested, putting on a pair of her own before barking something Spanish into the mic attached. "If you can't tell Araña, you can talk to our spineless captain up there." She continued, staring at the headphones next to Amélie pointedly until the sniper took a pair and slid them on. Everything else became muffled save for Sombra's content humming from the other side of the craft, which she assumed the mic was picking up on. Reaper refused to grab a pair however, and a pointed glare from Sombra only earned a shrug and a mumbled "I'm technically dead. My hearing and eyesight can't get better or worse." She assumed he said it louder, but the noise cancel from her headphones was enough to make it so even she had trouble picking out his voice.

"Alrighty amigos, we're off!" Sombra smiled brightly, "Unfortunately there's no inflight movie. And we ran out of peanuts on the 3 am flight, so you'll both have to suck it up." Widowmaker was suddenly aware of a soft whirr in the background, not unlike the sound of a really loud fan. She assumed it must be the noise from the helicopter, and tried her best to relax, sitting her duffle on her lap and closing her eyes. The initial takeoff a few minutes later was jittery, shaking the sniper and her bag left and right with no real pattern. But soon, they were in the air, and from the looks of it, it was going to be a long ride. Widowmaker busied herself with the novel she had stuffed into her bag, she felt a presence from over her shoulder, as if Reaper was trying to read over her shoulder, but she didn't care enough to look up from the pages to see for herself.

An equally rough landing shook the sniper from her trance, and as soon as the blades stopped whirring, she slid off her headphones and undid the elaborate system keeping her within the seat of the helicopter. The last belt slipped away, and Widowmaker stood and stretched, facing the hacker across from her, who had busied herself with a holopad momentarily before facing Widowmaker. "Well this is about the end of the line for now, Araña. I gave you the money I promised. And here's the file." She held up a small, purple thumb drive with a tinier spider sticker on it. Amélie took the drive and slid it into her bag, stepping out of the helicopter. "I'll stay in touch, Araña! Have fun! But not too much fun- Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" With that, Reaper, who had somehow slipped from his seat without her noticing, slammed the door shut so she could say no more. After a minute, the Helicopter took off again, making Amélie grateful for the headphones provided due to the noise of the whole ordeal, but after the dust settled and Sombra and Reaper were on their way to who knows where; leaving her entirely alone to make her way to wherever she saw fit.

True to Sombra's word, she was near Annecy, the buildings made it more than clear, and the distant view of the lake-and more precisely, the chatêau on it- were a welcome sight to her. After a minute of wandering the outskirts of the city, she came across a shiny solid black car. A snappily dressed chauffeur leaned against the vehicle, holding a sign that simply read "Guilliard". Thanking the universe (and Sombra) for smiling upon her that particular day, Amélie approached the man with her duffel, and gave him a nod once they locked eyes. He loaded her bag in the back, opened and closed the door for her, and soon the two were on their way to a place she thought she'd never truly call home again.

Annecy was just as she remembered when they drove through, the cutesy family owned storefronts hawking all manners of goods with apartments stacked ontop, the neatly kept flowerbeds under trees just barely kissed by autumn's soft lips, and the street lamps that gave off a glow that was more atmospheric than practical once the evening fog settled over the city. Pedestrians strolled down the avenues, and even though the tinted windows, she could feel the aura of unadulterated glee that emitted from the town around her into the vehicle. She found herself tensing up at every laugh from the outside, down to the jovial shouts of some children playing by the lakeshore they passed. They tugged at memories in her head long forgotten, trying to coax them out into the light for the first time in years and as a result, Amélie developed a splitting headache. The sniper forced her eyes forward, watching as the car drove up the long drive to her castle, and came to a halt in the circle drive outside her home's door. The chauffeur exited the vehicle, let her out, retrieved her bag and gave it back to her, tipped his hat, and like that, he was back in his car and gone.  
Leaving Amélie alone once more.

The weathered stone steps were almost paining to step on as she approached the door, and after some digging in her duffel, a key ring was produced. She fumbled with them a bit in the cool air, eventually sliding the correct one into the lock. The click that sounded as a result reminded her of the noise of her safety clicking off for some reason. She swung the double doors open, and as the oak doors groaned on their way to revealing the interior of the chatêau, allowing the sniper to see the courtyard in front of her. The walls were covered in dead or dying creepers, and the yard itself down to the cobblestone below her in various states of disrepair. She crossed hesitantly, the only noise accompanying distant birdcalls from over the lake was the consistent crunch of dead leaves under her heels. The French doors leading into the study had grime obscuring any vision into the house on the windows, and Amélie was more than a little shocked the place could fall into such disrepair over two decades as she delicately pushed them open.

The house inside was dusty. She could determine that right away from the motes that floated and twirled through the air like ethereal dancers. She rounded the corner into the dining hall, illuminated by dim light from the sunset outside, and almost pitiful to look at. The chairs and table were in decent condition, and her family's coat of arms still sat dutifully above the mantle of the fireplace, but it still felt so.. off to her. She couldn't quite put her finger on the word. Not wanting to linger for too long she continued with her tour.

The tour of the first two floors went like this, each room fairly similar when it came to the state of everything until she started up the grand staircase to the third. Unlike the first two staircases, this one was adorned with various portraits of her ancestors from her father's family. The largest and most ornate of the portraits was sitting at the third story landing. It depicted a Countess, who happened to be Widowmaker's namesake, Amélia Guilliard. Amélie didn't remember much of the stories her family had told her about the initial matriarch of the family, but rumor had it she was victorious in stopping the advances of Doctor Junkenstein himself and as a result she was given the money to build this chatêau. As if, everyone knew that story was a load of crap anyway. She probably just married rich like every other woman in her time period. She ascended the stairs, but something in her made her stop to face the portrait of the Countess calmly. The portrait seemed to glower at her, golden eyes meeting with golden eyes. And for a while, for reasons she couldn't understand, Amélie just stood there staring at the portrait.

"I'm moving in." She said, not quite sure why she'd decided to even say this aloud to the empty chamber. "If you have any complaints, now's the time to voice them." Amélie waited politely in front of the landing for fifteen seconds to make sure her dead ancestor wasn't going to smite her.  
If the portrait of Amélia had complaints, she didn't voice them.  
Satisfied a ghost wouldn't kill her in her sleep, Amélie continued on to the dark hallway leading to her room, the floorboards squealing in protest as she took each step towards the door at the end of the hall.

The door to the room swung open with a creak, and the entire room seemed to be shrouded in a layer of dust. Besides that, it was just how she left it. Her canopied bed adorned with its' deep purple covers, the letter of acceptance to Paris' most prestigious dance schools sitting open on her desk-she could even pick out the dried marks on the paper where she had shed a few tears-, the wooden bookshelf in the corner, teeming with all kinds of novels; and finally, as she examined her dresser, she found her little silver music box untouched.

It was a gift from her grandmother if she remembered right, all she remembered were wrinkled hands, a kindly smile, and the box being passed from one Guilliard to another. It played the most beautiful song when wound up, and she set her bag down to do so, her enthrallment with the tiny box instantly vanishing as soon as it began to painfully shriek out each note. So many years of disuse must have forever broken its' song. With the screaming of the music box in the background, Amélie began dusting off the bed. At first really inefficiently, but realizing shaking the covers would do her no good, the sniper stood and went off in search of a feather duster.

She avoided making eye contact with Amélia's portrait on her way down to the first story utility closet. She wasn't superstitious, but for some reason, even she was thrown off by the intensity of the glare the portrait gave anyone who dare approach it, or the third floor. Opening the small door, she took out a rather outdated feather duster, and returned upstairs to busy herself with tidying up her room. With a relatively dust free place to sleep, Amélie set her duffel right by her bed, and slowly slid under the silky covers. She didn't bother changing, partially because she had no proper pajamas at the time, but mostly from the lassitude she felt from whole ordeal itself, she found this odd, usually after moving to a new Talon base she was more energized than ever. She'd have time to figure this out later, for now, she decided to rest until morning. As she lay in bed, waiting to slip into her imposter of sleep, she puzzled over her new situation, what would happen to her now? Would she find work? What did Sombra even want with her? All very good questions, but ones that were drowned out by the slow creeping of the void into her mind. And eventually, Amélie was asleep.


	2. Suspicions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tracer finally comes into the picture, Overwatch is extremely confused, and a plan is formulated

She wasn't a stranger to the mannerisms of the rain. She'd lived in England since she was born, and London for almost as long. But Lena could tell her dining companions were slightly annoyed by the way the rain pounded on the glass of the window next to them. It wasn't a quiet rain either, the droplets pounded against the window like there was no tomorrow. In the Brit's view however, it was just white noise that made her companions raise their voices slightly.

To anyone else, they looked like some elderly parents and their daughter sitting at a cozy diner, having a conversation about something mundane like politics or financial struggles while having eggs and coffee. The woman sitting across from her, eyepatch exchanged for a gauze more common of those who had just had surgery on their eye, was sipping tea from a small cup with a floral design around the rim that would've matched Lena's if the flowers were orange instead of blue. The man sitting next to her wore almost comically sized sunglasses, but the scar running down the front of his face over the bridge of his nose was still quite obvious; he had a thing of coffee he had barely touched sitting in front of him, as he was more engaged with going through a holopad he had sitting on the table next to it.

Since the only operational base at the moment was at Gibraltar, and most agents couldn't be hassled to lug themselves down there just to be able to share information in private, if it wasn't a drastic emergency, or information reguarding Talon's plans this was about as formal conferences between Overwatch got. If something was classified, they'd meet in the relative safety of someone's home. But otherwise, if it could be discussed vaguely or was something civilians could be seen talking about without the government pouncing on them, a public place like a sleepy diner was sufficient enough.

Jack was more on edge than Ana, drumming his fingers on the table as he scanned over his holopad and occasionally running his hand through his hair. The sniper next to him simply sipped from her tea calmly, giving Lena an affectionate smile as she seemly tuned the disgruntled Jack out for the moment. "And what have you been getting up to? How's Emily?" The mention of her girlfriend -well, ex girlfriend- sent a slight stab of pain through her chest. She had to take a moment to clear her throat before she continued "Oh uh.. We had a bit of a clash in opinions last week, about uh.. My extracurricular activities. She said she couldn't handle watching me do all of this, and well, I guess all the random periods of jumping around trying to help chase down Talon wasn't sittin' well with her, so we agreed to break it off so she didn't have to worry so much. We're still friends though." Ana's expression turned to one of pity, or perhaps regret about bringing it up so soon; while Jack looked up from the screen he had been so fixated on and stared at her with what she assumed was a glare. She couldn't tell with the sunglasses, "You aren't drawing attention to yourself, are you Oxton? We okayed the home base vigilante act one time because one of our "friends" were lurking around. Singular. Off the radar is called off the radar for a reason." Lena rolled her eyes slightly, "I know /dad/, I don't want to get taken in by the UN either." Jack scowled, "That didn't answer the question Lena, are you or are you not running around playing hero?" The Brit scowled lightly, "What's it to you? It's not like the others are doing much beyond sitting around on their arses! I'm actually tryin' to do some good in this world and you two keep trying to shoot me down." Her accent had gotten noticeably thicker with her outburst, and Ana was giving Jack a look that she didn't care to try and read into. The soldier's voice dropped ever so slightly, and he took off his sunglasses to lock eyes with her, "Oxton. You. Had. Orders. I understand how strongly you feel about cleaning up King's Row, but it has to wait until the UN trusts us."

"Please Lena, just listen to Jack this one time."

"What- Now you're both saying I just need to sit on the sidelines about these things? Innocent people are getting hurt, Omnics are still getting oppressed, God, no wonder they all think we're a lot of bloody idiots."

"Lena, please-"

"No! I've had enough. If being Overwatch now means I have to sit and wait for whenever Talon feels like showing up and can't pay attention to helping the little guys, I'd probably be better off without it. Destroying Talon won't magically fix our image with the UN-"

Jack swiveled the Holopad around so Lena could see the screen. "We're a little too late on that." The screen bared a news article, showing a picture of the national guard swarming a Talon base and bringing handcuffed agents out. "They have locations on the other bases too, and all the agents, except for three." Lena tilted her head, the frustrations she had temporarily fading out and becoming replaced with curiousity about the situation at hand. "How could three Agents do an inside job? Talon is huge-"  
The American turned the holopad back around and tapped a few things, then turned it back to face her again. Arranged in a neat triangle shape, the pictures of two agents and a purple, pixel sugar skull faced her. "We think this one did it." Soldier tapped the icon of the sugar skull sitting at the top. "All we know is their callsign is Sombra. And our best guess is they're a hacker. As for the other two.. I can't even imagine their motivations." Lena shot a glance down at the other two agents and paled, the images of Reaper and Widowmaker stared up at her. The way the gaze of the sniper's picture seemed to drill into her was almost too surreal, and the Brit cast her eyes away hastily.

"We think something bigger is coming. Talon was apparently only a stepping stone for Sombra, we need to be on standby until whatever they have planned comes into effect." Jack concluded, snatching the holopad away and shutting it off. Just in the nick of time too, as the tired-looking middle aged woman serving them returned with a platter bearing their entrees.  
"Enjoy." She said curtly, setting down each plate as hastily as she could without spilling anything, and setting off from the table to attend to the other patrons of the diner.  
Jack and Ana thanked the waitress as she left, then turned to Lena after she had walked away.

"As of now, I've talked Morrison into letting me arrange a team to attempt to track down Reaper and Widowmaker once they show their faces somewhere." Ana started, giving Lena a slight smile. "I'd like for you to be on it. You have experience fighting both of them after all." The two elderly soldiers waited while Lena's face lit up. It wasn't exactly what she wanted to do, but it was probably as good as she was going to get, so she cast aside her frustrations for now. "I'd be glad to! One one condition: as soon as we stop whatever those three are up to, I get to take care of the riffraff 'round here, yeah?" She asked, crossing her arms and giving the older man a stern look. Jack's face hardened for a moment, But Ana, the kind and reasonable soul she was, gave Jack the motherly glare she'd really only seen used on Fareeha and Jesse before. "Fine Oxton. You help us with this project, and you can go home and beat up whoever you want. Within good reason obviously." Lena almost jumped up in victory, but remembering she was sitting at a booth, stopped before she slammed her knees into the wooden table.

"We're going to need you to come back to Gibraltar with us then for the briefing. We don't know if and when these two are going to surface under their new leadership, so I was going to brief the rest of the squad on what we know and our current plans on if and when those two pop back up." Ana explained, Lena nodding along as she did. "So who else will be going, luv?" Ana's face fell a little, "Both Angela and Fareeha didn't want me dealing with Widowmaker again should we run into her. But they're both on the team, so is Jesse. Jack might go, I don't know." The last part was said as Ana looked over to Jack curiously, but he only offered a shrug in response. "That can be saved for when we get there. For now, I believe our food has gotten quite cold." Lena chuckled lightly, but did as the sniper implied and began to eat.

The three ate relatively quickly, and much to Lena's disappointment, the taste didn't live up to the loud posters advertising how some celebrities had claimed to adore it. Jack just paid the woman in cash when she brought the bill, and the three agents set off for the car they had arrived in. Thankfully, the rain outside had softened to little more than a fine spray that was more refreshing than annoying, if not a little cold for the Brit's liking. The three navigated around the various pedestrians and tourists taking advantage of the lessening rain, and got into a nice, light blue car. Lena still was surprised one could buy cars in such odd colors, but if it were up to her, she'd get hers in orange, so she really had no place to judge. "It's just a short drive. Then we go by aircraft." Jack grumbled as the three got into the car. Ana rolled her eyes slightly, fastening her seatbelt before looking back at Lena with a playful twinkle in her eye, "What the grump means is if traffic stays like this, we'll be lucky to make it before sundown. You did remember to lock up your apartment and everything right?" The spark was lost, replaced by a look of worry that caused the Brunette to roll her eyes. "I did mom, it's not like I'll be stayin' at Gibraltar much longer than just overnight anyway." Ana seemed to accept this answer, then turned to look back ahead.

For the most part, the grueling ride out of the heart of the city composed of pointless banter between Jack and Ana about things Lena didn't have enough context on, or just didn't understand entirely. At one point the man tried to put on music by some old American pop star named Taylor Swift, but a string of Arabic curses from the sniper was enough to get him to shut down the device, and drive the rest of the way in silence. They drove a surprisingly long way out into the country, rolling hills eventually progressing in height until they fused into one very large hill that would be perfect for a sentry point. Jack turned onto the gravelly country road that led up to it, and Lena couldn't be more thankful cars had long shed their wheels. She remembered one her mum had when she was a kid that had actual wheels, visiting her relatives out in the country was a pain to do because of roads like this... Lost in her musings about the past, she was startled when Ana gently tapped her shoulder and gestured outside, "The ship is ready. Unless you want to stay here, I'd get on it." She said, grinning as she exited the car and strode over to the humming craft.

Lena ignored the area below them as she strode over to the craft, stepping inside and joining Ana at the seats that lined the wall. She was surprised to find Jack sitting next to the sniper, but took her seat next to them reguardless. "Who's flying this thing?" Her question had barely been asked when a southern drawl answered it, "Right here, lil lady. Morrison and Amari swung by to pick me up from the states. You were just on the way back to the base so I decided to tag along." Jesse McCree was sitting in the corner couch, sipping coffee from a chipped mug and giving Lena one of those down to earth smiles that were just so typical of the cowboy, it hurt. Ana snorted lightly, "Well do your job then. Winston wants us back before I keel over and die."

"I hear ya, Amari." Jesse stood from his seat and headed for the cockpit, leaving his coffee (hopefully finished, she couldn't see from here) sitting on the table. As the cowboy vanished up the flight of stairs to the controls, Ana casually slid out her eyepatch from a pocket in her coat and began working on trading the gauze for it. "I still don't understand why you do that. You should really just let Ziegler fix it." Jack grumbled, looking over at the woman. Ana smiled lightly in response, but it lacked in anything besides bitterness. "It's a reminder, Jack. Of mistakes I won't let happen again." The Egyptian said no more, but both the soldier and the pilot were certain of what exactly she meant.

Needless to say, the rest of the flight was dead silent save for Jesse's whistling to old country music from the cockpit.

Gibraltar was shrouded in shadow from the setting sun hitting the various buildings as the ship landed, and Lena practically bolted out of the door once it opened. The coastal breeze felt amazing after being shut up in a tiny ship for all that time, and for a moment, she just stood there, letting the sun warm her back and the breeze mess up her hair. She was so enthralled in this that she barely noticed when the main door to Winston's laboratory slid open, and her old friend came out, accompanied by Angela and Fareeha just behind him. "Lena! Glad to see you made it here safely." The ape's booming voice jolted Lena from her trance, and she offered her friend a smile, "Yeah luv! Long time no see huh? In person, at least." She threw her arms around her friend's neck, pulling him down into a surprisingly tight hug. Winston settled for gently patting her on the back until she let go. "Hey Fareeha. Hiya Angela." Fareeha gave her a tiny salute in response, causing Angela to laugh at the little gesture "You've been taking care of yourself, right Lena?" The doctor crossed her arms slightly, scanning over the Brit in a way that made her feel like she was standing infront of the other woman stark naked. Just as she was about to stammer out some response Fareeha gently punched Angela in the shoulder, "Really Ang? You're starting to sound like my mother." The statement made all three of them laugh, causing Winston, who had begun to make his way across the clearing over to Jesse, Jack, and Ana, to look back in confusion at what he just missed.

With the group successfully reunited, they headed inside. Lena always loved the Laboratory, with its cluttered worktables and hastily drawn calculations on the various blackboards standing around the room. Though unsurprisingly, the room smelled of peanut butter. It wasn't an unwelcome smell, Lena just found it bizzare her friend could eat so much of the stuff to the point his entire workspace smelled of the substance. She was also pretty sure that violated all kinds of scientific guidelines about having food in the lab, but she wasn't one to judge, she used to take her lunch into the room to visit with Winston while he worked back when she was still stationed here after all. However, behind the various tables with ongoing projects and computer monitors, sitting next to his space suit was another blackboard that Lena had to bite her tongue to avoid laughing at how much it looked like one of those conspiracy theory boards with the yarn strung all over the place and pictures neatly tacked to it. Attending to the board was a short woman wearing a coat very hindering for the climate zone they were in, with a messy brown bun kept in place by one of the cutest hairpins she had ever seen. She was also accompanied by a tiny floating robot that occasionally made a hum or a whirr she didn't quite understand, but the woman did just fine.

"Mei? I thought you were submitting your reports on the Ecopoint data." Winston headed over to the woman, leaving Lena to puzzle over how familiar the name sounded until it finally clicked. Blinking across the room, she offered the scientist a hand and a bright smile, "So you're Mei! Winston was stoked when you made it back to civilization, luv, wouldn't shut up about how much of a miracle it was. And then he showed me your journals and I found them so interesting- But I'm getting ahead of myself! I'm Lena, Though you might recognize me better as-"

"Tracer? It's an honor to finally meet you! What you guys do out there is really inspiring. I'm just glad to do my part, even if it is a small one." Mei returned the smile with an excited gleam in her eyes, extending her hand for Lena to shake. Her grip was surprisingly firm, and after two quick shakes she broke the contact to adjust her glasses slightly. "The reports were submitted an hour ago, Winston. Since you wanted to wait for these guys to land, I took the liberty of analyzing the current Talon data you had left laying around and marking any connections you might have missed in blue." She pointed at a deep blue string of yarn connecting the Talon logo to what looked like Lumerico's. There were a few other blue strands mixed into the mess of strings, but it looked like Winston had covered everything pretty well on his own.

"So you're still with Overwatch after everything that had happened?" The Brit asked, tilting her head ever so slightly. Mei laughed quietly, taking off her glasses to polish them quickly. "Of course! I made a promise, all of us on the expedition did. We'd do whatever it took to get this research out to the world. Oh- I'm sorry Winston, if you guys are about to start the briefing I'll head back to my lab. There's a few things I want to take care of before I stop for the day anyway." Winston shook his head, "You're welcome to listen in if you'd like. You, Ana and Genji might not be on the strike team but this isn't anything that should be kept from those who want to hear it. Within this organization obviously." He let out his booming laugh of his at the small joke, causing Jack to jump from where he stood in the corner. Mei nodded gratefully, "Thank you, but I really would like to take care of this before I go to bed for the night. See you later, Winston. And nice finally meeting you in person, Lena!" Mei waved cheerily to the room as she left, her little robot making a happy whirring noise from next to her. Soon, her footsteps down the metal corridor faded, and Lena headed over to the table where everyone else was seated.

She took the chair facing the board in the back, next to Fareeha and across from Ana. As Winston settled himself at an end of the table, the room fell silent, and all eyes flew to Ana. The elderly sniper stood, her usual kindly expression slowly melting into one of cold indifference. Lena was used to this, she had worked around these guys for so long their shifts from their regular personalities to their "blank slates" was very noticeable. "I assume you all have some idea on why you've been called here today." Ana didn't wait for confirmation before continuing. "Reaper and Widowmaker are still at large, along with their hacker companion. Of course, while capturing them is the obvious temporary solution until we can shut down Sombra, we still have to deal with them long term after their plans are thwarted. It's not like Talon will be busting them out any time soon after all... As of now, we have three propositions. The first being we turn them into the UN and let them serve time for their crimes." A general murmur of agreement went around the table, but Fareeha looked unsatisfied. "Doctor Ziegler, Fareeha, we're willing to listen to your propositions now." Ana smiled at them kindly, sitting back down as her daughter and the Doctor stood from their chairs.

Fareeha nodded to Angela, and the Swiss woman smiled softly before speaking. "My suggestion is that we retrain them to fight for us. We know they're both skilled, and Widowmaker if not Reaper have already undergone conditioning to make them good soldiers. It would just take some rewiring, and certainly a lot of time." Her idea wasn't received as warmly as Ana's, but the two old soldiers in particular looked interested in this option. With Angela sitting down, all eyes flew to the Egyptian, who smiled coldly, "I say we ask for the death pentalty on all three. They are all monsters, and we should let the afterlife judge their souls, If they even have any that is." Her short speech finished, she took a seat next to Angela, leaving the room in shocked silence. "Fareeha, I understand where this is coming from, but killing for no reason isn't our way." Ana's voice we collected as she stood, giving her daughter a slightly pained expression. "I wholeheartedly agree with you that Widowmaker if not her and Reaper both, deserve to die for what Talon has done. But by trying to be better people, we must learn to be more tolerant of others as a result. Even if they are seemingly unworthy of forgiveness or a chance at redemption. Worst comes to worst, we'll let the UN make the call. Understand?" The elderly sniper's expression hardened slightly, and Fareeha lowered her gaze ever so slightly in submission. "Yes, mother." Ana clapped her hands together, smiling at everyone present for a moment before taking a step back from the table.

"That aside, I don't believe these things should have to be said, but there are certain self proclaimed heroes at this table who would probably get reckless if I didn't." Lena felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her as Ana gave her a look, but the effect lessened slightly once she realized Jessie was receiving the same treatment from her. "/If/ you run into Reaper or Widowmaker, if you so much as hear someone mention them being in the area, Do. Not. Engage. Contact one of us, and try to keep a location on them without getting caught. It's alright if you lose them, we rather have you alive with a weak lead then you dead with no lead at all." Lena nodded along with everyone else at the table as Ana continued, "With that being said, should they try to engage you in combat... Do whatever you can. Just don't kill them. Any questions?" Ana looked around at the gathered room, and despite having quite a few questions of her own, Lena kept her mouth shut.

"Dismissed. Oh- If you need to return home the hovercraft will leave at noon." Ana concluded, turning and accompanying her daughter out of the room. Lena lingered for a little until it was just her and Winston left, both scientist and pilot sitting in a comfortable silence for a while until the former spoke up. "I'm probably going to get back to work unless you need anything, Lena." He said quietly, "I'm fine, luv. You take care of what you need to." Their gazes met, warm brown eyes peering into her honey colored ones for any signs of anything that could possibly be wrong with the Brit. Satisfied after what seemed to be an eternity to her, Winston stood and headed over to one of his computer terminals. Lena stood from her seat, wincing a little as she stretched, soon after heading further into the base.

The hallways were cluttered; a result of Winston and whomever was staying at the base for the time period moving things around to breathe life back into the complex. Lena knew the struggle of dragging boxes of files from one point to another all too well, and she swore her arms ached at the thought of carrying them. The quarters that were still usable were located in the middle of Gibraltar, a fairly lengthy walk from Winston's lab, and unfortunately, unless one found counting boxes interesting, there wasn't exactly a variety of activities to do. She ran her fingers against the wall, the smooth metal occasionally interrupted by a seemingly infinitismal bump or dent. And soon, she had reached the hangar that held access to the crew quarters. From inside, she could hear laughing, masculine, but she was too far to associate a voice with a face. Descending into the orange room, she found Genji, Fareeha and Jesse watching something together on a holovid. The cyborg looked up, giving Lena a slight wave, "Come watch! I found this really good streamer the other day. She's an insane Starcraft player." Fareeha snorted lightly, giving Genji a slight grin, "Your "D.va" can't beat Sekhmet this time around." Lena tilted her head slightly, but went and sat behind the two males and looked onto the screen.

On the screen, it looked like any other stream one might've tuned into, with a face cam of a surprisingly young looking Korean girl in the corner, The rapidly scrolling chat was filled with various languages, most those Lena couldn't understand, but now and then she saw a few English comments about how impressed they were with the gameplay, or more commonly, proclaiming their undying love for "D.va" could be found. Jesse leaned back slightly, tipping the brim of his hat down and folding his arms together, "I don't see why y'all insist on such a silly bet. D.va's the best of the best, or so they say. Why even bother?" Fareeha gasped in mock offense, "And have no pride for my homeland? I'd sooner die." Lena rolled her eyes lightly as Genji chuckled to himself, "Well that's 20 easy dollars then." The four watched the girl play in relative silence, Lena didn't understand about 99% of what came out of her mouth, as it was in Korean (And Genji, having learned the language due to his father's insistence, refused to turn on the subtitles.) But she still found herself relatively intrigued by the stream for a while. Eventually, D.va screeched something Korean into the mic, and a collection of bright symbols flashed on the window showing the gameplay footage. Genji jumped to his feet, "Yes! Fareeha, that'll be 20 bucks." He said smugly, holding out a hand to the woman. The Egyptian grumbled, forking over the cash before heading over to her cot across the room. Lena rolled her eyes and stood from her seat, strolling down the aisle until she found the third cot on the 2nd row on the right side of the room. "This brings back memories." She flopped onto the stiff mattress, whether from misuse back when Overwatch was still operating or just age alone, she didn't know, but being equally uncomfortable with your bunkmates was just part of the experience in her book.

It was odd how quickly things winded down. Back in its heyday, the recruits would talk into the wee hours of the night about their hopes, dreams, and the obligatory "who would you rather smash?" questions. But that evening, it was just the four of them, and Fareeha and Jesse passed out fairly quickly, leaving Genji and Lena alone with their thoughts.

"So. Widowmaker and Reaper, huh? That must make you jumpy."

"Not really, luv. It's about time something is done about those two anyway."

"Do you really think you'll thwart Sombra's plans?"

"Of course! It won't be easy, but I know we're capable of it."

"If I can do anything, give me a call."

"Will do."

With that, the cyborg rolled over in his cot and seemingly powered down(?) Tracer wasn't quite sure how that worked. Looking up at the ceiling, she started counting the small dots in the ceiling panels.  
Somewhere in the 100s she wondered about what Sombra could possibly want with those two.  
Somewhere in the 200s she was so caught up in her theories she didn't even notice when Angela came in and crashed in the cot next to her's.  
But somewhere in the 300s, her conscious and subconscious were so connected by these theories she wasn't even sure herself if she was thinking or dreaming...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With these shoddy intro chapters out of the way I can pour my heart and soul into writing these two healing eachother. (and hopefully kick my writing up a notch to the next level while I'm at it.)  
> No, as of now I don't have plans for D.va to come in as anything other than what she is in the fic now. With the exception of maybe three or four characters that haven't been introduced in these first two chapters, these guys are who you're getting for the bulk of the character interactions that are more indepth than just a reference or a quick conversation.


	3. Mission 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie learns that she isn't as in control of herself as she'd like to think, Sombra needs a favor, and the plot starts picking up ever so slightly.

What nobody informed Amélie of was how hard it was to function in normal society after playing the role of a soldier for so long. On her first full day of freedom, she realized a bunch of shopping would have to be done for the Chatêau, and while larger things like replacements for the worn down, moth-eaten furniture, and updates to the various appliances around her home could simply be shipped to her door during the week, more pressing things, like food, and clothes that weren't emblazoned with Widowmaker's logo, needed to be taken care of as soon as the sniper could. And unfortunately for her, that meant venturing from her safe haven on the lake into the outside world.

It felt weird, slipping on some of her old clothes that fit surprisingly well for coming from presumably right before she headed off to Paris. The fabrics were musty smelling from sitting in the closet for so long, but the fabric was much softer than and nearly as flexible as the catsuit Talon provided her on missions. She felt no nostalgia as she slipped them on, but decided the jeans and black long sleeved shirt did their job adequately, and slid on some old combat boots sitting in a shoebox at the bottom of the closet to tie the outfit together.

Then came the problem of leaving her rifle. The gun, to Amélie at least, symbolized protection. She never went too far without it or another gun within her reach. To be fair, Talon officials were more likely to chastise her for showing up to a meeting without it. To compromise, the sniper strapped two small kitchen knives to the inside of her boots with a roll of duct tape she found in the nearly empty cabinets, it wasn't very comfortable, as the handles dug into her calves, and more than a little unsettling for she hadn't had to engage in melee combat for quite some time, but she had faith in Talon's training, and should she encounter a foe on her adventures, she'd be ready.

Amélie left the Chatêau on foot, she knew a taxi would be more convenient, and would keep her from having to walk through the dense morning fog that coated the bridge leading to and the streets of Annecy like a fluffy, grey, carpet. But the sniper didn't know anyone around here, she wouldn't trust them with her worst enemy. So she walked with only the company of the whispering wind, and the slowly rising sun stubbornly sitting a little ways above the horizon keeping a wary watch over the Frenchwoman.

Lady Luck smiled upon her as she strolled down the fairly empty streets, as she stumbled upon a supermarket within fifteen minutes of wandering the town's avenues and alleyways. It was a cute little store (That claimed to be all organic, but Amélie somehow doubted it.) sitting on the corner, with displays of colorful flowers in hues of reds, yellows and oranges arranged in buckets outside. She paid no heed to the flowers, they'd just die when the winter drafts settled into the castle anyway. A small bell attached to the door chimed merrily as she entered, alerting the omnic at the checkout to her presence. There were a few other people browsing through the small market as far as she could see. None looked like threats, but there was a mother with her small, overly talkative child perusing the produce that she instinctively avoided for the sake of not getting a headache.

She picked up one of the handheld baskets, she didn't plan on buying more than she needed, and she certainly wasn't expecting visitors, so the moderate size was good enough for her. Wandering around the small store, she focused on staples first; bread, milk, eggs, flour, and sugar fell into the basket and made the trek with her to the produce on the other end of the store. The fruits there practically reflected light back into her face from how shiny they were, and the sniper debated between red and green for a moment before hovering over the green apples, golden gaze examining each individual fruit the way she examined her rifle before a mission, with any signs of an imperfection causing the fruit to be set back alongside its' flawed companions.

She wasn't aware that this wasn't normal practice until she became aware of two people approaching behind her. The mother and her child judging by their voices. "Mommy? Why is that lady blue?" The child's voice wasn't mocking despite how loud it was, infact it oozed with the youthful naïveté common of a boy that age. "I don't know, Jacques, some people just aren't as fortunate as us I suppose." His mother's quiet reply, if she had to guess, the woman was trying to get her son to lower his voice so the sniper wouldn't hear. Amélie shrugged it off, she didn't expect the boy to understand the extensive mental and physical conditioning that made her superior to him, and she wasn't about to explain it either. However, Jacques was apparently not satisfied with the answer, or perhaps he just wanted to hear it from Amélie's mouth, as he ran up behind her and tugged on her shirt, "Excuse me miss, how are you blue? Are you an alien?" Amélie ignored the boy's persistent questions at first, assuming the brat's mother would come and claim him once she realized his absence. "Miss? Are you deaf? Why are you so interested in those apples? And why are you blue????"  
His voice grew more urgent with each question, as if realizing he didn't have long before his mother saw he was gone. The sniper continued to ignore him, and felt a small spark of relief as he ceased tugging on her shirt and walked away. His tiny footsteps stopped on a few paces away, and suddenly, she felt a round object hit between her shoulder blades before plopping to the floor. "Miss! I asked you a question!" His shrill voice was frustrated, but she could detect some underlying notes of desperation within it.

That's when something in her, whether an internal trigger, an instinct, or something else entirely, snapped

The sniper whirled around, much to the surprise of the little boy, who had seemed to become half convinced she was a statue. Within a heartbeat the basket of groceries in her grip were discarded on the ground, and she had him pinned to the display of oranges opposite to where she was standing. "I-I'm sorry!! Please don't hurt me- Mommy!!" The little boy, Jacques, was freaked out, his eyes as big as saucers, something that made the sniper's cold heart beat faster in anticipation of the kill. She dug her nails into his neck ever so slightly, a cruel smile appearing on her face. "Foolish boy. You should've thought about that before you strayed into my web." Her tone was devoid of anything but a mock pity, her sneer and her taunting gaze enough to make the poor boy's face go paler than it already was and scream even louder. By now his mother had been alerted by his cries, and had sprinted over to try and pull Amélie off of her son, most likely assuming the way mothers did that the sniper had attacked the boy first, and not the other way around, "Fucking she-devil! Leave my son alone! He was just asking me a goddamn question! Can't a boy be curious without someone like you ruining his fun?" Despite her best efforts, the woman could do no more than strain her muscles slightly as she tried to budge Amélie's stiff form. Seeing the Frenchwoman had Jacques in a deathlock, she settled for trying to inflict as much damage on the sniper as she could, which unfortunately wasn't as effective as the mother hoped. She had felt more pain then a few well placed kicks and scratches from a middle aged woman before after all.

However, it was there, in the middle of the store, her spilled groceries around her, nails digging into the neck of a child who probably didn't understand why the sniper was doing what she did, when Amélie Lacroix had a thought unlike most of those that went through her head in these situations. Since it was so abnormal in nature, and nobody was really there to tell her she couldn't, that such thoughts weren't becoming of a Sniper like herself, she paused to consider the fact that maybe a naïve child wasn't worth her energy. So it was there she realized her training had kicked in, her head clearing and the malicious expression on her face melting into one of casual indifference. Her fingers slowly, and as she noted, almost reluctantly peeled away from Jacques' now bruised neck, and the small boy ducked under her arms and ran to cling to his mother's leg, sobbing all the way. The woman snarled at Amélie, protectively holding her child to her, "Things like you shouldn't be out here. I swear the EU needs to lock all you loonies up in an asylum where you belong." With that, her shopping completely forgotten, she lowered her voice and ushered her son out of the store, mixing promises of toys and ice cream with cursing Amélie's name.

Amélie had to fight every instinct in her that screamed to pull one of the knives from her boots and kill the woman here and now. But just like the thought that saved Jacques, another, one more similar to those that brought the weird feelings of pure calm, not unlike how she usually felt, with no emotion behind it, but this void was comforting in it's embrace, it was softer in a way, and she could only describe it was how she felt when she visited Gérard's grave. She felt no remorse, no sorrow, no anger, no anything. But something about the respect she paid to a life long lost made her feel more at peace.

Unfortunately, the scuffle in the store had drawn the attention of the few other shoppers, who looked at her with fear, disapproval, or in the case of one elderly man, what seemed to be quiet respect. She made a note to avoid him. The Omnic cashier seemed to be debating saying something, and obviously flinched at the Sniper's approach. However it was not the knife she pulled from her boots, rather, she dug around in her pocket, slid out her wallet, opened the leather pouch, and placed a 20 on the counter in front of the Omnic. "For any damages done to your property." The cashier sputtered a little, looking up at her in what she assumed was confusion, Robots weren't exactly expressive after all. But by the time they said something in reply, Amélie was already heading out the door.

She'd just order takeout for dinner.

When she arrived home, it was close to lunch, and her stomach scolded her for not taking something from the store earlier. Amélie shrugged it off as she entered the Chatêau, pausing a moment to see the courtyard in full light. The dead and dying creepers almost looked faded in the sun's full light, and the cool stones below didn't seem to know what to do with the sun's warmth. She shook her head lightly at the sorry state of her home, then headed inside to attend to other repairs the Chatêau required.

She decided to start in the library, or study, she was fairly certain the room was meant to be a combination of both. The deep red paint was to her liking, so beyond a few replacements to the worn furniture, she just needed to rearrange the hundreds of books that sat on the shelves. Walking up the small staircase into said room was almost like walking into another snapshot of history. A thick layer of dust covered everything she could see. She wandered around the perimeter of the room, her finger drawing a line across the otherwise solid blanket of dust coating the spines of the books. When she retracted her finger, she rubbed off the large spot of dark grey residue that had accumulated on the smooth skin of her finger from doing so. She paused at the desk, unlike the rest of the room, the mahogany was nicely polished, and sitting ontop of it was a silver laptop plugged into a charger. A neon purple logo depicting Widowmaker's trademark 'W' glowed from the back. It was clear she was meant to find this at some point, and hesitantly, she approached the machine, flipping the lid up and instinctively jumping backwards, as if expecting the machine to explode. The screen was black at first, but a gentle tap to the power button caused a small, pixel sugar skull to materialize in the middle of the screen. A few dots began running under it, signaling the program she had unintentionally opened was running, and within a minute, the loading screen was replaced with an image, or rather a video? of Sombra.

She was sitting in a room decorated with deep purple decor on what she could see of the walls, and a few other monitors were seen in the background, so it could only be assumed it was where she retreated to hide out, if she didn't already live there. "Hey Araña! I Gabriel drop by earlier, but since you weren't there, I took the liberty of recording this message for you. Let see.." Sombra picked up a few sheets of papers, "Since we already discussed the contract and you sighed away your soul for my disposal.. I'm just kidding!" She laughed quietly, tossing the stack of papers aside, Amélie heard them hit the floor making the interesting sound that she found only describe as a scattering noise. "But in all seriousness, I hate to call on you so early, especially when you're probably trying to figure out what the fuck is happening with your emotions and thoughts now that Talon isn't going to be feeding you hormone soup every week, and from what I could tell, it was kinda starting to wear off anyway. But unfortunately, duty calls. There's a 'Friend' in King's row who isn't paying up. I need you to go.. deal with him. It'll be just you this time, Gabi is off doing some other errands for me." Sombra pulled an image onto the screen, it was a middle aged man with twinkling brown eyes who didn't look all too menancing from the image. He was smiling at the camera quite cheerfully, and if she didn't know any better, she'd assume he was a civilian. After a moment of letting her examine the image, she tapped it and it was replaced by one of some old, rustic looking apartments with balconies. "He lives in these apartments. I'm sure you know how to let yourself into a building by now. But even so I'd still use the balconies." Sombra typed a few things into the keyboard looked up at the screen, then smiled, "Your flight is booked to leave from Mont-Blanc airport at seven. So if you didn't see this on time.. I'd hurry up, amiga. Well, Adios! Just use the little chat app to leave me a message once the deed is done. What? I don't have time to constantly stalk you while you do my bidding." Sombra rolled her eyes with a grin, gave the camera a wink, then raised a finger to tap the screen once more;  
"Boop!"  
With the video message gone, the screen opened onto a screensaver of a photo Amélie vaguely remembered Sombra taking of all three of them, her back was turned in the photo, as she was talking to another official about the mission they were going to go on, but Sombra had an arm around Reaper's shoulders, and had snapped a picture anyway. She remembered the hacker scolding her about it afterwards, the thought of it struck something in Amélie's heart, she wasn't sure what exactly it was. But she had bags to pack, and a flight to catch, so she stopped loitering at the computer, closing the Laptop's silver lid to go do so.

The heavy Chatêau doors slammed shut behind her as she left, leaving the sniper in the chilly fall air as she headed down the drive to the waiting Uber. The driver nodded to her slightly as she got in, and as soon as she was secured in her seats began to drive. Regrettably, she had forgotten to do something about the lack of edible substances in her home, and resolved to pick something up at the airport before her flight.

The ride was fairly uneventful, with the quaint cityscape and rolling countrysides melting together into one until they reached the small airport. Inside, she noted a young looking officer brandishing a sign reading "Lacroix" it seemed she wouldn't have to fight her way through security after all. The young pilot lead her through the airport, until they reached a rather lavish lounge where he guided her out a set of doors to a private jet. "Your pilot will be with soon you so your flight can begin shortly, Ma'am. Do you need any help with your luggage?" His American accent was obvious, and it was clear by his expression something about her caught his eye. The sniper, who really felt like slapping him for looking like a lovesick puppy, forced a smile, "That won't be necessary, thank you." She turned, heading up the staircase leading into the vehicle with her duffel clutched tightly in her right hand. She felt the baby blue gaze of the pilot follow after her.

The interior was very cream. Cream cabinets, cream seats, cream walls. It almost made her sick. But she took a seat, bag sitting nicely at her side until an older man boarded the plan and gave her a slight smile. He didn't say anything as he vanished into the cockpit, but soon enough a calm, kindly, elderly voice came over the intercom. "Good evening, I am your pilot, Ivan Dubois, our flight to London will be taking off shortly..." His voice became background noise to the sniper as she stared out the window, watching the other airplanes until they began moving down the runway to start the brief journey to their destination.  
It was incredibly brief, only shy of 3 hours later, when they landed at a bustling London airport, Amélie saw herself off as soon as the plane landed, and headed into the sprawling expanse of buildings that was London, England.

It was raining lightly, the already dark night sky made an inky black by the rain clouds, the souls who walked the streets now carried umbrellas, Humans strolling almost casually, Omnics with their heads bowed and hurriedly dashing through the rain reguardless on if they had some protection from it or not. Amélie strolled casually through the crowded streets, already feeling more at ease than she did on the streets of Annecy. She'd have to find an alley to duck into so she could get onto the rooftops, but for now, she stuck with the crowds, ignoring the few brave vendors toughing out the storm in an attempt to sell their sleazy trinkets or to offer last minute tours of sites nobody but an starry-eyed idiot would find fascinating.

As she progressed towards more residential areas, the crowds thinned out slightly. Not enough to make that much of a difference as she navigated, but enough for the Sniper to notice as she ducked into an Alleyway between two clothing retailers with brightly lit displays in their windows. One outfit illuminated in the corner of her peripheral caught her eye, and she made a note to stop by once the job was done to see about purchasing it for herself.

Once in the relative gloom of the alley, the sniper felt herself relax. She shed the trenchcoat she had been wearing in favor of her spandex, but folded the cloth up before setting it inside her bag that the Widow's kiss previously occupied. Clutching said rifle to her chest, Amélie took a breath, pointed her arm up towards the rooftop, and fired her grappling hook. The fine curtain of rain that enveloped her once she hit the rooftops was almost comforting, it brought back memories of her initial mission here, the one that ended in the death of the omnic. Widowmaker felt a surge of pride flow through her as she strolled along the roof's edge, looking down at the blissfully unaware public below her. She had forgotten the feeling of superiority she felt when looking upon the masses like this. And to be frank, she found she didn't miss it

A sharp pop sounded in her right ear, and Amélie almost stumbled off the edge of he building in surprise. Once she had secured her footing, a cheery sounding Sombra started talking in her right ear. "I knew making your comm one of your earrings was a good idea! I'm glad Talon listened to me on that. Anyway, glad you made it to London, Araña. Gabi says hi. Right Gabi?"  
Amélie heard a half hearted grumble from the background as Reaper passed the hacker, "He's just grumpy I'm making him work more than you. Anyways... I just called to give you a heads up that your target is in close proximity to a.. Friend. Of yours. Same building, but she's a floor down. She shouldn't be home since I impersonated her girlfriend and told her to go somewhere halfway across town, but try to keep it quick and quiet. I don't know how long my stall will work." The furious clicking of keys was heard, then a frustrated sigh on Sombra's end, "Just get back to me when you're done, or if you're screwed over somehow, tap the comm twice and I'll see what I can do. Adios, Amiga." The hacker's voice went silent, though Amélie stood in the rain for a minute more to ensure she wasn't going to add anything. After confirming Sombra was entirely done, she briefly pondered over what she said.

The prospect of meeting Lena meant nothing to her, infact, with how the girl managed to get her blood to boil and was so fond of ruining her plans, it was probably in her best interests to plant a few venom mines in her apartment on the way out. An idea, yes, but Sombra didn't seem that concerned, and as long as she didn't linger, hopefully the pest wouldn't assume the kill was by her hand. As far as she knew, she was out and hiding from the search for Talon officials after all. She felt satisfied with her conclusion; and with her thoughts sorted, she began the process of running across the damp rooftops of London.

There was something exhilarating about going from building to building, the sensation of how she was propelled by her grapple was something Amélie could only compare to flight. The backdrop of the towering skyscrapers in central London provided a soft spotlight on her as she went on her way, the streets below a radiant mosaic of color from how the lights from the glowing neon signs illuminated and bounced off the various puddles below. She raced the wind on the way to her destination, the gusts of air crashing against her given an unique texture from the droplets of water they carried to unknown destinations. It was as close to beauty as Amélie could define it, the only thing that would make it absolute was if the quiet hum of the city ceased, and it became just her, the lights, and the whistling wind.

But the apartments came all too soon, and the Sniper knew she had work to get done. The lights could wait.

Getting down the balconies quietly was easy. The hard part was breaking in without anyone seeing. First, an experimental press on the handle, the door was unlocked, not really surprising considering it was a private balcony a good distance from the ground. Sliding her visor on, she examined the inhabitants of the building, a red silhouettes sleeping in a room to the left, presumably the man. From outside, the number of walls between her and then muddled the shapes slightly, she couldn't tell. Keeping the visor on, she slowly swung open the door, the inside combination of dining and living room growing slightly brighter with the addition of the light from outside pooling in. She picked her way across the small, warm dwelling, her rifle resting loosely in the crook of her arm, and the safety making a satisfying click as she switched it off. The light dimmed as she progressed down the hall, but it didn't affect her much, her eyes had locked on the door separating her from her target like a flimsy wooden shield long ago.

The sniper's hand wrapped around the knob to the bedroom, cool metal causing her still damp fingers to slide ever so slightly while she began turning it. The door opened slowly, and Amélie prayed her target wasn't a light sleeper. The man in the bed remained still, causing a twinge of relief to flutter in her chest momentarily. In the still room, she raised her rifle to her shoulder, the scope clicking almost too loudly as it popped out. She aimed, and within a second the shot was fired, the noise sharp and loud like thunder. Some of his blood splattered the pillows and headboard behind the man like a component of an abstract art piece, one that probably only Amélie and those like her could enjoy. She felt like she was floating, the pride she got from a kill filling her body with a tingly warmth she was more than happy to give into as she crept back out of the bedroom, not bothering to shut the door. Across the hall, and back into the pool of glowing light from the still open balcony door. She closed the door behind her as she stepped out of the small abode. For some reason, it felt like she was closing a door on something much more than a former target's building.

Stepping further out on the balcony, she tapped her comm, her gave flicking up to the splotchy patches of clouds above, she couldn't see any stars, but that was to be expected, London was a ridiculously bright city after all. "Sombra. I've finished the mission. I'm staying the night in one of the old safehouses they should be finished poking around in, I'll return to Annecy in the morning." She could feel the warmth she felt slowly ebbing away, something that she should be used to, but the feeling always shot a small spark of panic in her. She was always worried that that time would be her last when it came to feeling. She headed across the balcony, heels clicking against the stone louder than she would've liked, and aimed her gauntlet at the building across from her. Just as she was about to fire, something made her stop. That something being the feeling of someone's gaze boring into her. She checked the balconies adjacent to her, negative. Her golden gaze flicked upwards at the ones above her, once again, negative. She then checked the two that could probably see her if they tried hard enough a few feet below her. The left one was fine, but as she looked down to the right, she silently prayed that the inhabitant would leave her alone, or at least not chase her once she made her escape.

"What the bloody hell- Did you just kill that guy??" The voice was panicked, or perhaps outraged. Amélie could never tell with that ridiculous accent, but one way or another, her gaze met one that she was hoping to avoid this trip, to be perfectly honest, she would've been perfectly content with leaving this person alone should they run into eachother.

But one Lena Oxton didn't seem satisfied with giving her the same mercy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! There we have it. These two have met.  
> Thank you all for the kudos and the feedback. I love reading your thoughts.  
> Anyway, until the next chapter.


	4. First Encounters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our protagonists finally meet face to face, engage in a brief skirmish, and Lena becomes determined to track down Amélie if only to prove everyone wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for being a week late! There will probably be less frequent updates until the 2nd/3rd week of December, so I apologize for the inconvenience ahead of time.

She thought that evening would be relaxing, just her, a cup of lemon tea, and the city below her. After all, since Emily didn't feel like meeting her when she said she would, she thought she deserved it. What she didn't expect was a muffled gunshot from one of the apartments, with Widowmaker emerging from its depths within a minute afterwards.

The sniper seemed surprised to see her, frozen on the balcony like a deer caught in headlights, and for a moment, they just stared at eachother, Lena waiting for an answer, the sniper for reasons she couldn't wrap her head around. The sniper seemed to realize Lena wasn't exactly in a position to chase her however, and quickly shot her grapple to the building across the road, launching her figure across the road and onto the roof before she could say anything else. The Brit jumped to her feet, flinging open the door to her dwelling and frantically searching for where she was charging her accelerator. Thankfully, the small, glowing device was sitting on one of her side tables next to her pistols, and she was quick to throw it on, grab the guns and sprint out the door. She got a few confused looks from her neighbors, the ones who didn't hear the shot presumably, and to save time, she rushed up the stairs as fast as humanly possible without tripping on a stair and breaking her neck.

The cool air wrapped around her once again when she sent the metal door to the roof access flying open with a bang. Sure, it was dumb that she wasn't calling someone like Ana said, but this could be her one shot to get answers out of Amélie to questions she knew Jack and Ana wouldn't prioritize. She sucked a breath in, backing up slightly as she faced the direction that the widow had taken off in. She took off as fast as she could, vaulting off the building and using her accelerator to fill in the rest.

A surge of excitement filled her body, her expression much more alert as she scanned the rooftops surrounding her. Now she just had to figure out where Widowmaker was going. She mentioned something about a safehouse, right? It wasn't like last time they fought in King's Row, she didn't have Talon to hide behind. And Tracer was more than a little excited to fight the Sniper with just their skills alone. She almost regretted leaving her holopad at home, but she was sure she just had to track down some of the old warehouses on the outskirts of town, one was bound to be a Talon base.

Blinking across the roofs (And nearly falling to certain death once or twice) Tracer continued her way across the city, a smile on her face and her pulse rifles held tightly in her grip. Somewhere below, she heard someone call out to her, their voice quickly obscured by the speed she was going and the distance between the rooftops and the ground. She assumed it was a fan. Well, she hoped it was a fan. Either way, she kept going until she was in a noticably shabbier side of town, a few abandoned warehouses sitting idly on the outskirts, waiting until the city inevitably razed them. She paused, examining the apartments below her and searching for the best way to scale down them without injury to herself. Eventually, she located the rusted fire escape along the side of the building, shuddering as the cool air nipped at her face while she climbed down. She grimaced as something squelched under her shoes when she set foot in the alley below, the noise startling a cat who had been dozing ontop of a trashcan. The feeling of quiet pity she felt was enough to ,even though she was more of a dog person, drive her to scratch the top of his head as she passed, shrugging as the feline retracted his head from the contact and hissed.

The first warehouse proved a bust, just dust, cobwebs, and a few small scuttling things on the ground Lena prayed were rats. Her spirits remaining somewhat high, and slightly more dusty than she started. The second proved more promising, a set of footprints in the dust that Tracer tracked like a bloodhound, but all that managed to do was upset a hobo camping out in said warehouse once she stumbled on his camp. Finally, she came to the final building, the giant doors were ajar, a promising sign. Inside looked more like a miniature military base then a warehouse, and everywhere she looked there was evidence that people were here recently. But it wasn't long before her suspicions about the warehouses were proven right.

Rounding a corner, Widowmaker froze in her tracks as both she and Lena realized the other was there. The sniper hurriedly drew her rifle; and Lena held up her pulse pistols, both Women standing in an awkward stalemate in the building. They stood for what felt like an eternity, guns raised and eyes locked, Widow's narrowed, glinting with the quiet intelligence Lena had picked up in her. Widowmaker wasn't deadly because she was just a weapon, that would make any of Talon's grunts a threat. She was deadly because of her ability to take a situation, assess it, and quietly turn the tide in her favor. Like a spider spinning a web to capture an elusive fly.

Thinking on this metaphor proved to be a mistake for Lena, for suddenly Widowmaker sprung forward and dealt a few quick punches to the gut that had her reeling. The pilot staggered backwards, thankfully keeping a tight grip on her pistols, then proceeded to shoot at the sniper. She was expecting this, swapping her rifle back into its SMG form as she nimbly darted around the room, effectively dodging most of Lena's shots as she ducked behind a wall. The sniper's return fire sounded more like a video game sound effect then Lena's pistols did, and the Pilot dove behind a steel table. "Y'know luv, I think you're a better fighter without Talon whispering in your ear all the time." She called, hoping that she'd take the bait.

"What kind of insult is that, chérie? Your attempts to aggravate me are as dull as your fighting style. So predictable too." The sniper's voice seemed smug from across the room, Lena cautiously poking her head above the Tabletop to see if she'd emerged, the click of Widow's scope popping out was enough to have her duck back under. "Well at least I have a style! I bet those goons probably programmed you to fight the way you do too." A bitter laugh sounded in response, a singluar footstep echoing around the room as the Widowmaker took a step. "Talon did nothing but give me the tools to better myself. I wouldn't expect someone like you to understand." A burst of gunfire sounded just above her head, sending the Brit scrambling across the room to hide behind an information port, pistols raised and poised to shoot the minute she had a clear line of sight on the sniper. "Well Talon isn't around anymore. So why are you still killing?" She asked, cautiously peering around the side to locate the woman. "I'm doing what I was made for. It wasn't hard to find someone who'd buy my gun."  
"But /why/?"  
"It makes me feel alive, chérie. Something that even Gérard couldn't give me." She chuckled quietly, and Lena knew this was her window, she rolled out, just barely missing the Widow's shot she had lined up. Blinking forward, she slammed the Frenchwoman into the steel floor below. "I can understand why they want to kill you now." She growled, Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, "You and your old dogs can certainly try. But I fear actually doing so would harm you more than help you." She sneered,shoving the Brit off of her. Lena fell back, and was met with the muzzle of a gun in her face, "It's such a pity I have to rid of you so soon, chérie. I was hoping you had a few more fights in you." She smiled coldly, pulled the trigger, but the only sound that followed was bullets hitting the metal below.

A relieved Lena sat directly next to her where she had the sniper pinned now, but realizing her time was limited before the Widow recovered from surprise, noticeable by how she had raised a hand to her earlobe (weird quirk, but who was Lena to judge?). She stood and tripped the sniper, unfortunately getting pulled down with her once widow snagged her shirt's collar. Widowmaker was still pinned though, and Lena wrestled the gun from her grip before kicking it away. "Okay. I have questions and I want answers, luv. I mean, you're not walking free either way, but it's either you tell me or you tell one of those "Old dogs" and I doubt they will be nicer then I am. "Why did Sombra hire you?" Widowmaker remained silent, her spiteful gaze burning into Lena's until she was forced to look away. "I don't think I'm speaking Chinese, Amélie-"  
"Widowmaker."  
"Okay, Widowmaker, whatever. If you won't tell me why they hired you, what are you doing here?"  
"None of your business." The sniper's anger had melted into an expression of amusement. Something Lena probably should've seen coming considering her nature, but had overlooked in her rush to get something worthwhile out of Widowmaker.  
"Did Sombra send you? Someone else? What's left of Talon?"  
"None of your business."  
"Do you know where Reaper is?"  
"None of your business. And must you really hold me like this, chérie?"  
Lena scowled at her slightly, Widowmaker giving her an expression of feigned innocent, well, probably double feigned, she wasnt innocent to begin with after all.  
"Okay. Why did you kill Gérard? Surely that's not classified."  
"It is. Though if you had an IQ over 10, you could probably figure it out."  
"Can you tell me /anything/ useful?"  
"You're an idiot."  
"Ouch."  
"You asked if I could tell you something useful."  
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just turn you in here-"  
"Sirens."  
"What?"  
"Outside you foolish girl. Our scuffle must have drawn some attention."  
Lena paused, in the distance, she could hear some sirens, but they were faint.  
Suddenly Widowmaker was seemingly yanked out from under her, causing the Brit to fall flat on her face. The sniper had used her grapple to get out from under her, grabbing her gun and facing Lena with a cocky smile.  
"I wasn't kidding about the Sirens."  
"Uh huh, sure."  
"I should know. I'm the one who called them." With that, Widowmaker grabbed her duffle bag and grappled up to where one of the windows facing the city was, blowing Lena a kiss as she smashed open the grimy window using the butt of her gun, the glass hitting the concrete below: an addition to the symphony of the rapidly approaching sirens  
"Au revoir, chérie. Say hello to my old colleagues for me." And just as the door to the front slammed open, the spider made her escape into the night.

"Lena Oxton I have half a mind to kill you-" Jack was grumbling from he stood next to Winston, the latter looking quite concerned for her. It had been two weeks since Lena had her run in with Widowmaker, and thanks to a quick imtervention from her friends, she got away from the whole "Why are you in a restricted area?" Business with a slap on the wrist and a small fine.  
Corrupted cops did have their perks after all. However both Jack and Ana insisted on constantly video chatting her to make sure she wasn't about to go running off in search of what remained of Talon. Now was one of such calls, and Winston had tagged along to talk to her afterwards about friend stuff. As the old soldier prattled on about respect and listening to orders, with Lena nodding along boredly and giving half hearted "yes sir"s when appropriate, Winston seemed to get more and more exasperated with the man's babbling "Jack, I think she gets it. Now can I please speak to her in private." The mercenary glared at Winston for a moment, then sighed and looked back to Lena, "I'll finish this later, kid." With that, he left the room, leaving Winston alone to continue the call.

"I think you need to take a vacation, Lena." Her friend sounded concerned, fumbling with his glasses slightly, "Nothing too long, just to let Jack cool down and maybe come up with an actual lead for everyone to follow." He quieted slightly, letting the Brit ponder over the idea for a moment. She looked around her apartment, her thoughts melting together until one fact from the night she met Amélie again became blatantly obvious in her head, If that lead still held... Well, she'd prove everyone wrong, and that was good enough for her.. "Alright luv. I'll do it."  
Winston seemed shocked at her sudden agreement, but quickly cleared his throat and smiled, "Sounds great! Where do you think you'll be going? And how long?"

"I'm off to Annency. And if things go right... I shouldn't be long at all."


	5. Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amélie feels attacked, Lena gets some vague answers, and our favorite Hacker plans to take Amélie on her version of a "Girl's night out".

The trip back to Annency was a quiet one, so quiet that when Amélie entered the silent presence of her home, the occasional rustle of the trees outside and crashing of waves against the castle's lower walls were sudden, earsplitting intrusions. The sniper wandered into her kitchen, and with much difficulty, got the ancient kettle sitting on the counter to sputter to life. She took a seat at the other end of the marble countertop, watching the steam slowly begin to rise from the spout of the kettle. It was like this for a while, Amélie silently watching, the kettle whistling cheerily as it worked to heat up her water. She probably would've stayed like that forever if time, and other forces, allowed.

"Hey! Amélie! I see you're back. Why so shaken?" The sudden sound of Sombra's voice in her ear caused the sniper to cringe lightly, her face contorting into a scowl. "You didn't tell me Oxton would /chase/ me. And I thought she was supposed to be out with her girlfriend." She snapped, balling up one of her hands into a fist. Sombra huffed lightly, "Well I didn't anticipate they broke up! Besides, I sent the cops to deal with her, didn't I? Speaking of which.. How long is her sentence?" The sound of Sombra's voice was replaced with a few keys clicking. Then silence. "Fuck." Amélie raised an eyebrow, "And what does 'Fuck' mean, Fantôme?" She asked coldly, shooting a glance over at the kettle to check its progress. "Have your laptop with you, Araña?" Sombra's voice actually sounded slightly concerned, which in turn made Amélie /very/ concerned; the hacker getting nervous generally meant something was wrong, or wasn't easily stopped by her methods. "Non. But I can retrieve it."   
"Please do."  
Amélie sighed, standing from her seat at the counter before heading across the kitchen, out the door that really needed to be oiled, and up the staircase onto the right that led directly into the study. She strolled over to her laptop, opened it, and huffed softly as the screensaver popped up. "Okay Sombra. What is so problematic?" The Hacker typed furiously in response, and suddenly, the tiny envelope icon at the bottom of the Laptop's screen jumped before a small purple exclamation point appeared next to it. Amélie raised an eyebrow, but clicked the icon, and nearly froze once the message fully loaded.

Sitting in the message was a screenshot of the passengers who had booked a flight to Annecy, while not abnormal on its own, as she read down the list, her eyes landed on a very familiar name.  
Lena Oxton had booked a ticket on this flight not two hours before it left. Amélie bit back the odd prickly feeling she felt slowly creeping up her spine before reading over the list again. "And you're sure this isn't one of the other many Lena Oxtons who probably live in the U.K?" She asked almost half sarcastically, closing out the tiny screen and shutting off the laptop entirely. "You didn't think I'd check to make sure it was just an unlikely coincidence? I'm offended, Araña." Sombra's panic had faded back into her normal playful tone, the sniper standing from her seat and returning to the kitchen to check the progress of the kettle.

"Look, I think you'll be fine if you hole up in the Chatêau, I've already taken the liberty of removing your little incident from yesterday from the Internet. Lena should be on a wild goose chase." Sombra reasoned, making Amélie roll her eyes lightly as she took her seat across from the small device once more. The kettle let out a piercing shriek before quieting to only the bubbling of the boiling water inside it, the noise seemed to startle Sombra more than the sniper, as she heard her shift in her seat a little on the other end of the line. "Very well. I'll get to locking everything up." Sombra huffed softly, the sound of rapid typing becoming audible once more. "I'll see if I can get her away from here without making it look like I'm trying to deter her from reaching you. Like I said, you'll be fine if you just hide in the Chatêau. Her flight is in, but I doubt she'd start poking around until morning." Sombra explained, "I'll have your next mission assignments to you once this all blows over. I need help with getting someone else to cooperate. It'll be a fun trip! Girls night out if you will!" Amélie rolled her eyes, shutting off the comm and beginning to make herself some coffee. The comm crackled to life as she just poured the mix into the strainer, earning a long sigh from the Frenchwoman. "Amélie! Don't just hang up on me when I'm talking. Es muy antipatíca. Now where was I-" The sniper hissed, hand flying to where the earring sat, "You have two seconds to shut up before I toss this thing into the lake." Sombra groaned quietly, and she could hear her shift in her chair a little, "Okay okay, I just thought-"  
"Don't. Assume. Anything. About. Me."   
"Damn okay Araña, just calm down." The mental image of Sombra holding up her hands the way she did when she was finished with an argument came to mind, somehow, the idea made Amélie's mood significantly better.  
Amélie poured the coffee into a chipped mug sitting in the counter, the smell of the liquid relaxing her slightly. "Now leave me alone. I have work to do."

As soon as the coffee was gone, Amélie went to work fortifying her home. She ensured all the doors and ornate windows were locked, drew all the curtains shut, and barricaded the massive doors that opened onto her courtyard from the bridge leading to the estate. To further her security, she dug around in her duffel bag for the last of her venom mines she had snatched before Talon fell, and went about setting them in various doorways and just below windowsills. After all had been done, Amélie headed up the staircase of portraits, pausing to meet the Countess Gulliard's painted eye. For a minute, she wondered if maybe once upon a time the countess had to barricade her home in the same way Amélie did. Probably for other reasons, but it was the same concept in the end.   
The portrait did nothing but stare back at her, and eventually Amélie left Amélia to her eternal watch over the dark stairwell, vanishing into an equally dark hallway to hole up in her room.

Her room was in slightly better shape since she arrived, for the most part, everything was dusted off, and she had changed the sheets on her bed to some almost identical dark purple ones she was able to order online. She had organized the bookcase, and organized her desk in a way her current mindset agreed made more sense than college Amélie's organizational skills, and put the music box away in the closet. She wasn't exactly tired, but she did find herself laying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly until she began feeling sleep tug her into its cold embrace. For a while she fought it, forcing her golden eyes open only to have them slowly inch shut minutes later. But eventually, she succumbed to its hold, slipping into the quiet void she had grown accustomed to for the night.

That would be, until she heard some strange noises from the courtyard directly under her window. The sniper rose from her bed, carefully picking up her rifle and approaching the window.   
The dark purple curtains drew back with a quiet swish and Amélie was left with a view of the courtyard, the brightly colored trees in their hues of red and orange, faded, cracked, stone, and the singular statue of Aphrodite illuminated only by the rising sun. An initial scan revealed not much out of the ordinary. One of the trees still covered in a blanket of brilliantly colored leaves was rustling quite obnoxiously, which was probably what woke her up; but the noise could easily be pinned on a squirrel, bird, or even a stray cat messing around in the branches. Her training with Talon, however, taught her that three scans minimum, one initial, one checking for just visual cues, and a third checking for just auditory cues were the base to a good survey of an area. Nothing out of the ordinary in the courtyard, she couldn't see anything indicating another human had been in the area recently, however, listening to where the ongoing rustling was occurring soon yielded other sounds..

Like that of her window getting tampered with. Amélie hissed to herself quietly as she slowly forced the window open, it squealed in protest, but if the invader in the tree noticed, they didn't show it. She turned away from her window, readying her rifle and swiveling around to aim at the movement. She waited, watching the gun shift ever so slightly with her breathing until eventually she was 110% confident in her shot, curled her finger around the trigger, and fired.

"BLOODY HELL-" Instantly, her suspicions were confirmed as Tracer fell out of the tree, clutching her right shoulder. Not the best shot, but in her defense, a barrier of leaves blocked a full visual on her target, and she didn't have her visor with her, it sat in the study downstairs. For a minute, she watched Lena quietly struggling from her window, then slowly, she closed it, locked it, and closed her curtains once more. At least now she knew she had the upper hand.

Rifle in her grasp, Amélie slowly descended down the dim staircase, through the dining hall, and out onto the walkway that led to her courtyard. Lena was still there, scowling angrily at the window of her bedroom, and now, bobbing in the water off of one of the chatêau's stone docks, Amélie could see a small, worn out boat tied to one of the mossy, damp posts there, no doubt some cheap rental. She approached slowly, making sure each footstep was timed with the crashing waves so the click of the heel against the cobble was drowned out. This elaborate process continued until she was close enough to her target that her gun could be obviously pointed at Lena with a gap between them should she need to escape. A scowl appeared on her face, "Why are you here?" She asked coldly, the Brit jumping where she sat, clutching her shoulder: She looked at Amélie with an astounded expression. "Didn't think you'd come out."  
"I wanted to see what was so important you dragged yourself all the way out here for."   
"Answers."  
"You won't get any. How did you know I was here?"  
"Rumors of the creepy blue woman who hides in her castle and almost killed a woman's kid don't look to good for you, Luv."  
"I'd silence your younger before I do it for you."  
"Well, it'd be a shame if you killed me. They know this was the last spot I visited." That was the last straw, for within a second, Lena was slammed up against one of the archways surrounding the courtyard, Amélie holding her there in a relatively tight chokehold. "Here's the deal, Oxton. You want your answers? Fine. I'll answer what I'm allowed to, but after that, you return home and tell your little friends that they were gotten from an anonymous source. I was never here, and I will never be here. And you will leave me alone. Otherwise I kill you right now, put your body at the bottom of this godforsaken lake, and to the rest of the world, you died in a freak boating accident. D'accord?" The Brit seemed to process this, Amélie's gaze narrowing with each passing second. After what seemed like forever of them sitting out in the early morning sun, she swore she could feel some dew collecting on her body, Lena slowly nodded, "Deck a cord or whatever you said, luv." Amélie, now quite satisfied with herself, dropped her, Lena gasping for breath, and motioned for her to come inside. "Very well. I'll tend to your wound while we're at it. The less questions your stupid friends ask, the better." As she vanished into the shadowy halls of her home, she could've sworn she heard Lena mumble some kind of thanks to her, albeit probably a very sarcastic one.

Two hours later, Amélie found herself sharing omelettes and coffee with someone she never thought she would. The table had been neatly set, and She sat on one end of the sunlit room, sipping her coffee and pretending like Lena, with her now bandaged shoulder on the other end didn't exist. It worked relatively well until Lena looked up at her, "Alright. Question time. Who is Sombra?" She asked, the sniper taking a sip of her coffee as she did so.  
"An associate."  
"What does she want?"  
"Answers. Much like yourself."  
"Where do you come in?"  
"I just shoot things, Oxton. If I knew the greater scheme of things I wouldn't be dealing with brats like you." She grouched, the sound of her fork missing her omelette and clinking obnoxiously against the ceramic plate instead, the noise echoing through the room. Lena seemed to consider this for a moment, her honey brown gaze distant yet calculating.  
"Why are you doing it, then? There's no more Talon. So why keep shooting?" Lena asked quietly, looking up at her.  
"There hasn't been an Overwatch, why do you keep playing vigilante?"  
For a minute, Amélie and Lena regarded eachother in the cheery light that was spilling in from outside, Amélie found it hard to believe that Lena would do something like this just out of the kindness of her heart. It was a fundemental fact in her eyes that humans normally needed an incentive, something to keep them in line.

Lena just proved to be even more of an enigma than initially thought.

With her coffee nearly finished, Amélie stood from her chair, scowling lightly at the other woman. "I think our time is up. I'll see you out, then you act like we never met. Understood?" Her tone was cold, rigid, leaving no room for an argument despite the protests that threaten to spill from the Brit's slightly opened mouth. "That was barely even a conversation, Amélie! I want at least one more question." She too, stood from her spot, the chair's legs making a quiet squeal as they slid across the floor. "One question then, you foolish girl. Then leave my sights." The sniper fired back, her eyes narrowing slightly. "What's really her end goal? Sombra's I mean- As much as I'd like to hold up my end of the bargain if what you're doing is gonna put the world in jeopardy.." She trailed off, honey brown eyes staring at the sniper intently as she awaited a reply.

Amélie debated this question, so similar to the one she deflected earlier, and after a while, decided to give the girl some peace of mind, if only to ensure she would be able to keep her solitude without her and her friends nagging her anymore. "She wants to get to the bottom of something. That's all she's told me. I just keep her methods of doing so in check." She stated, motioning to the door, "Now go. And pray that I never see your face again." Lena seemed reluctant to do so, but slowly, she left the room, and the sniper, in peace.

If she thought she was done with visitors for the day, Amélie was very wrong. As later that evening she walked into her study to see about maybe reorganizing the hundreds of books lining the shelves only to find Sombra sitting sideways in the old leather armchair in the corner of the room. The hacker held a book up to the lights, squinting at the contents inside with a baffled expression. "How do you read this stuff?" She asked, whining softly as Amélie snatched the book from her grasp, checked it for obvious damage, then replaced it back on the shelf from where she assumed it came. "It's fairly simple, Fantôme, I understand French." Sombra huffed lightly from her spot, tilting her head back to look up at the sniper, "Spanish and French are still both in the same language family."  
"But they're not the same language. Now, why are you here?" Amélie looked down at the hacker disapprovingly, a slight scowl flickering across her face when Sombra gave her a cheeky grin in reply, "¿No puedo decir 'Hola' a una amiga, Araña?" Sombra pouted slightly, causing Amélie to roll her eyes lightly. "You're an idiot."  
"A likeable Idiot."  
"Non, just an annoyance."  
"Then why do you work for me??"  
"You pay well."  
"Hah! That's a compliment."  
"I'm sure I could find others interested in my services that would pay twice as much as you do."   
Sombra sighed lightly, sitting up in the seat and crossing her arms slightly, "Look, I came here for two reasons. The I'll save the more urgent one for last, but I thought you'd like to know I've tracked down a certain scientist who played a major role in turning you into the edgiest smurf on the planet." She explained, already, a small purple screen was open infront of her, and Sombra was rapidly tapping on her floating touchpad (Something Amélie still couldn't wrap her head around the mechanics of) in search of the file. Find what she needed, she flipped the screen around so Amélie could see. Displayed on the surface were various articles about Oasis's "Minister of Genetics" accompanied by images of Moira in over the top outfits. The very sight caused a bitter taste in Amélie's mouth, and she didn't realize her fist was clenched until Sombra began looking at her almost worriedly. "Woah there, Araña- We can't just run in and kill her now. Don't you know what she would do if she got her hands on any of us? I'm glad she never fucked around with me, but you and Gabi.. She's deadly smart. Probably implemented some kind of command word in you both to ensure you wouldn't turn against her." Sombra flipped the screen around, typing rapidly once more. "I'm working on something. You may not be able to deal the final blow, but I think I can at least knock her off her high horse for a good while."

Amélie didn't know what to think of this, on one hand, this was the woman who designed and approved the treatments to make her into who.. No, what she was. On the other, afterwards she acted almost like a motherly figure to her, though now that her mind was slowly clearing of Talon's constant injections of chemicals and hormones to "Keep her balanced", those memories became more and more twisted, the slight smirk when Moira promised to fix things for her initially, the way she never provided any answers for her other than more procedures that just buried her old self under more and more layers of conditioning and alterations, and the way she always spoke of her like one would a piece of art they had made. She was slowly coming to terms with her being nothing to Moira but a project. Something that could be discarded should it go awry. She felt a small bit of relief that Talon didn't last long enough for things to go awry. "Then what was the other thing you mentioned?" Her voice was dry as she asked this, but Sombra seemed to be glad to offer her a distraction, even if that wasn't exactly her real intent. "Well, I need to negotiate with an old official of Lumerico. In other words, you need to come down to Dorado with me. You probably won't do much besides stand there and look scary, but hey, better to be safe than sorry right?" She grinned slightly, which Amélie mirrored with a colder, stiffer version.

"Then it's settled! We head out today and if time allows, I'll show you around town. Maybe we can drop by the Pandería." Sombra smiled a little, motioning for Amélie to come with her, "I already packed you some stuff, you just need your gun." She explained. Rolling her eyes, the sniper tailed the other woman, but as she followed her out of the door, she found that even with the hacker's chattering, she was smiling lightly.

Perhaps things could change for her after all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fairly short chapter, I know. But I have decided as atonement for not writing that often I will be writing two special mini chapters (or maybe just one) for the holidays. They don't affect the plot (much), I just thought it'd be nice to write a little christmas special.


	6. And Answers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallmark exists still, Sombra is a bitch, and Amélie kind of sort of makes Lena not hate her as much. They're still working on it.

 

When it came to getting your mind offfinicky snipers, even though you hadn't run into them for a few week's time, there were few ways better than turning on a cheesy Hallmark movie and making some popcorn. Lena actually quite enjoyed one of these movies every now and then. Sure they had similar plots, but that was kind of the beauty of it, you watched them for a bit of Christmas cheer and to see two people fall in love. Tonight's particular film "Love Hackually" was one of her favorites, an Omnic businessman learning about the spirit of forgiveness while also promoting a positive message about having a relationship with an omnic. Needless to say, Lena was surprised the government hadn't had it banned yet.

As the sun finally slid beyond the horizon outside, Lena made sure everything was ready to go for her mini movie night. Take out stir fry from her favorite place down the street? Check. Various fluffy blankets and pillows piled on the couch incase she dosed off? Check. Hallmark channel on and ready to go? Check. Tracer was all set, and as she wrapped herself in the blankets, regretted not making some tea or even some hot chocolate. It could be done during a commercial break, the movie was about to start after all...

"Jake? What are you doing here!" The woman onscreen pulled an overdramatic expression that still managed to make her laugh despite seeing the film countless times. Just as the Omnic was about to say something in reply, Lena's attention on the movie was shifted to a soft tapping noise on the balcony doors.   
_Tap Tap Tap._  
She didn't think they were due for any rain or hail that night, but then again, she wasn't frequent on checking the weather ever since the slipstream Incident. Shrugging it off, she returned to the film, where the woman and omnic were now trying to fix her car so she could get to the all important Christmas party on time.  
 _TAP TAP TAP TAP._  
Lena huffed, shooting a glare back at her balcony doors. She really needed to have them replaced if the rain was that noisily hitting against it. She grabbed the remote and turned up the movie. She was still annoyed enough to not be really paying much attention to it, but at least it drowned out the insistent weather from outside.  
 **BANG BANG SMASH.**  
"FUCK- MY HAND-" A woman yelled from outside as the glass from Lena's door fell onto the floor. She had an accent, it was obvious enough Lena could tell, but she couldn't quite discern where from. She turned down the volume of her movie and slowly shifted on the couch to stare at the now broken window sitting in the French doors. The light curtains blocked her from seeing who exactly was out there, but enough moonlight shone through to reveal two shillouettes.

Her pulse pistols sat on the kitchen counter across the room, where she had been doing some regular maintenance on them: Slowly rising from her seat, she narrowed her eyes at the window, where she could hear two muted voices in conversation. One seemed a little too familiar for comfort. Sprinting across the room, she grabbed the pistols from the counter, flicked off the safety, and sprinted the short distance to slam the double doors open.

She didn't count on accidentally hitting Amélie in the face.

The sniper hissed, rubbing the bridge of her nose, it seemed to be where she was hit the hardest. "I /told/ you not to do that." She spat, glaring at the woman on the other side of the balcony, a Latina woman with a half shaved head, probably the one who broke her window from the way she was cradling her hand, it didn't look too bad from Lena's perspective, only a few cuts. But for all she knew some glass got embedded in her palm. "Hey, at least I got her attention. You were barely touching the glass!" The other replied, looking up at Lena with a bright smile "Hola, Amiga." She waved with her non-injured hand. The look in her violet eyes made her uneasy, they were too calm, but unlike Amélie's, they glimmered with a quiet malice. "Lena, this is-" Amélie started, only to be cut off by the other woman."I can introduce myself, Araña. I'm Sombra, pleasure to meet you, Amiga." The Latina stood, pushing past her with her shoulders (As she was still clutching her bleeding hand) to access the inside as if completely unfazed by her pistols. "Let's discuss this inside. As of now, we have shared interests." Sombra stated with an amount of certainty that made Lena's uneasiness only grow. She vanished into the depths of her home, leaving the sniper and her alone on the balcony. The Brit gave Widowmaker a bewildered look, rasing an eyebrow. "This is your boss?"  
"She's.. Interesting. But she's also quite dangerous. Choose your words carefully, chérie." The sniper's tone seemed weary, as if being around the other woman tired her out greatly. "What do you mean by that, luv?" She asked, leaning on the balcony slightly. The look of confusion on her face was still present, and Amélie once again pinched the bridge of her nose, this time more out of frustration than anything. It was weird to see her make this face, Lena was so used to her smug grin that she was almost certain that was the only expression Widowmaker was capable of. The sniper turned to her, golden gaze glimmering with a quiet annoyance. "Like it or not, you're going by her rules right now. Step out of line and I'll have no choice but to shoot you on the spot." She hissed quietly, raising her rifle to establish her threat more clearly in Lena's mind; then she too entered her home with only a small gesture to motion she should follow.

Sombra had already made herself at home, that meaning she had raided Lena's bathroom for medical supplies, had bandaged her hand, and helped herself to some chips that she had in her pantry. She was kind of mad about the chips, they were her favorite kind after all, but remembering Amélie's words, didn't say anything. The sniper took her place at the corner of the room, keeping her rifle at the ready and fixing her piercing gaze onto Lena. As for her, she took a seat on one of the chairs facing the couch, and to an extent, Sombra. The Hacker seemed please with her compliance, and set the chips down. "You don't mind if I have some of these do you? Haven't eaten since Dorado." It was tempting to feel bad for her, but then again, she was an internationally wanted criminal. (Well, she did feel slightly bad for Amélie, but more in a "I pity anyone who has to work under this woman" sense.) "Anywayyy.. La Araña and I have a proposition for you!" Sombra smiled cheerily, rapidly typing into a small purple keyboard and on some matching screens that seemingly materialized from nowhere. Flipping a screen around, she revealed a tall, red haired woman, dressed in elegant clothing and seemingly at some kind of unveiling ceremony. "Does this woman ring a bell?" Sombra grinned slightly as she examined her closer. Come to think of it, she did look like one of Blackwatch's former doctors. "Her name is Moira, right?"  
"Moira O'Deorain, yes. She's an old.. /Friend/ of ours." Sombra shot a glance over at Amélie, who seemed unphased and perhaps even a little bored by this whole thing. The sniper was busy looking over her nails and shaking her head lightly. Who knew Widowmaker thought she needed manicures?

Sombra leaned closer, lowering her voice slightly, "Look. I don't care if your friends back at Overwatch want her brought in alive or dead, but I promised my amigos over there this one little personal victory." Lena cocked her head to the side, raising an eyebrow at the Hacker's certain face. "And why should I help you do that?" Sombra pouted, tapping on the screens before some files popped up, "I was hoping you'd just take my offer.. But if you're curious: I can leak just about any of this lovely information, or maybe just get you or one of your friends mysteriously involved in some kind of cyber scandal. The choices are limitless for me. Now, you can be a good little soldier, work for me without complaint, and I'll pay you the same way I'm paying Amélie. Or like I said.. Endless possibilities." Lena's face contorted into a scowl, the Latina only smiling coldly back at her. She debated for a moment, skimming over the files (which were labeled with various titles that only confirmed Lena's initial uncertainty about the woman. "Fine. What the hell do I get out of it?" Sombra pulled away, smiling brightly and raising her voice back to its' usual loud, cheery tone.  
"Glad we have a deal, Amiga! Of course, I'll compensate you for your trouble with cash. Not to mention the locations and statuses of a few of the more.. Fickle agents. But most importantly, we're going to help you catch Moira! Amélie and Gabe have a few scores to settle with her before you turn her in, so you really just have to be there for transport." Sombra explained, folding her arms together with a sly grin, the hacker paused this stance to grab some chips, a bright smile on her face. "But you get to take her in, and get the credit to boot. How's that for getting on the good side of your friends, eh?" She smiled innocently at her, Amélie looking up from her nails with an odd looking expression; it looked like she was trying to seem confused, but couldn't quite figure out the mechanics of doing so. Needless to say, both she and Sombra (after the hacker noticed her giving Amélie a puzzled stare) shot the sniper a look of sympathy, which made the pseudo-confused expression on Amélie's face intensify slightly. Both of them slowly looked away to leave the sniper to her own thoughts.

"Good! I hope you have no qualms about heading out tomorrow, it'll be a busy day. Amélie, bring our stuff in and then go get some sleep, would you? I believe the guest room is over there." She pointed at a door that was indeed Lena's guest room at the other end of her apartment. Amélie looked at where she pointed, nodded, then went to retrieve two small suitcases from the balcony Lena guessed she had overlooked in her initial shock at finding the two women on her balcony. Sombra watched her carefully, waiting until the door was shut before speaking again.  
"Do me a favor, amiga. Try not to provoke her. She already doesn't like doing this. She wouldn't say it to my face, but I can just tell." Sombra folded her arms slightly, continuing to stare at the closed door. "She's the one who likes to provoke me!"  
Sombra rolled her eyes, "The whole fiasco in London could have been avoided had you just not pursued her. I'm starting to think you're attached, Amiga." Sombra paused, pursing her lips in thought before looking over at Lena, "You're not interested in her, are you?" Lena shook her head rather quickly, the Latina raising an eyebrow as she did so, "Whatever you say."

Just then, Amélie decided to poke her head out, effectively startling both women. "I'm making some tea."  
"At 9:30?"  
"Oui."  
"Whatever you say, Araña. Lena, where's your teapot?"  
"In the kitchen."  
Amélie nodded softly, and crossed the room to where the kitchen's entrance was. Leaving them both with an almost silent movie and the noises of Amélie scrounging up what she needed for tea in the background. Sombra took the remote and turned it up a little, then huffed, "Yeah, I'm taking the master suite. This couch sucks." She hopped up from the chair, yawning obnoxiously loud, "Okay, in going to bed! Night Araña! Night.. I need a nickname for you." She grumbled the last part, heading down the opposite hall towards Lena's room. As she watched the hacker go, she couldn't help but think that this sudden exit was intentional.

Regardless, Amélie showed up with two cups of tea a few minutes later. She set them both down, and took a seat on the couch where Sombra had been sitting. "You can have the guest room. This couch is adequate." She commented, taking a sip of her tea. The sniper seemed much more relaxed then Lena recalled, her gaze fixed on the television with a slight hint of boredom present. She took a sip of her own tea, the liquid was pleasantly warm, a little weak, but it wasnt anything a little practice wouldn't fix. "You can have the guest room, luv. I get the feeling Sombra wants you to have it."   
"Non, it's your home. Take it."  
"Amélie, I-"  
"Widowmaker. How many times do I have to remind you-"  
Lena stood suddenly, driven by a well placed spark of annoyance. Whether at Talon or at Amélie, she wasn't certain. Reguardless, the sniper seemed a little startled at her sudden gesture. And for the sake of not flinging tea everywhere, she set down her tea cup before beginning to speak. "No, you're not Widowmaker. Widowmaker would've had me killed or turned into a Talon by now. Widowmaker wouldn't be going against her own. And Widowmaker certainly wouldn't be taking orders from whoever the hell she thinks she is." Lena jerked a thumb at the bedroom where Sombra was (Hopefully) sleeping. Amélie just stared at her blankly, waiting a few seconds before starting to speak. "I am not Amélie Lacroix. She was a dancer, a housewife, and most importantly, a pushover. She gave everything up to make Gérard happy, and it still wasn't enough. Yet she still kept giving, and look where that got her." She hissed the last part, her eyes narrowed into judgemental slits at the ghosts of a past Lena could only begin to imagine. Her entire body seemed coiled up against the couch, ready to spring forth and strike the first thing that dared come forward. More like a threatened snake than a spider. The sniper paused, relaxed her body, letting the malice drain from her gaze before she looked up at Lena, as devoid of emotion as when she first came in. "Go to bed. Sombra booked us an early flight." It wasn't a suggestion by her tone, but the sniper didn't seem eager to say anything else, or ensure she went to bed, laying out on the couch fully before rolling over without another word escaping her lips.

Lena felt tempted to stay, to comfort her, but something in her gut told her that Amélie's pain, although hidden under various layers and probably would remain like that for a long while, wasn't one that could be fixed with a simple pat on the back and a few sympathetic words. Regardless, she watched the sniper until her body seemed to still entirely, and praying that meant she was just asleep and not dead, headed into the guest room. Despite the two suitcases now sitting by one of the bedside tables, Amélie seemed to have left the room untouched. Something Lena was grateful for as she slid into the bed. It'd just feel awkward if she knew the other woman had been lying there. It was awkward enough knowing she was asleep in the living room.

As Lena drifted off to sleep, she wondered if Amélie felt the same way, or if she even cared at all...

She awoke to something cooking, and angry yelling from the kitchen. Half asleep and bleary eyed, Lena stumbled out of her room to see what the predicament was. "Araña! We agreed on /Breakfast tacos/."   
"I only know how to make Omelettes." Amélie seemed unfazed by the other woman's raised voice, giving her a blank stare as she continued preparing said omelettes. In Amelie's defense, they did look pretty good.  
"Breakfast tacos are not Omelettes!"  
"I'm aware."  
"Then why did you say you would make some??"  
"I said I'd make some Omelettes."  
Lena coughed quietly, earning the attention of both women. "I don't mind Omelettes." She offered, which caused the sniper to grin smugly at Sombra as she tipped the food from her pan onto a plate. "See? She wanted Omelettes." Sombra huffed in defeat, walking around the breakfast bar and taking a seat on one of the counter's plastic chairs. The Latina noticed that the chairs were indeed swivel chairs, and began slowly spinning back and forth, stopping whenever her gaze wasn't looking into the kitchen before bouncing back the other way. "I think I liked you better when all your stubbornness was programmed." Lena snorted quietly, taking a seat next to her as Amélie slid the hacker the first plate of Omelettes before retreating back into the depths of the kitchen to a few pans that sat simmering on the stovetop. The scent from the room was enough to make the Brit's mouth water. At least Amélie knew what she was doing. Seeing her companion was still slightly peeved about the whole situation, she leaned over, shooting a wary glance at Widowmaker before speaking. "She's French, Sombra. They're just naturally assholes." She whispered, causing the hacker to almost choke on her food laughing, and a high five to be exchanged between the two women. Just then, Amélie swiveled around, stalked over to the counter with a plate that seemed to be more pepper than omelette, and put it down infront of Lena with a smile so fake it wouldn't fool a child, "Enjoy, chérie." She said cooly, returning to preparing her own food. Lena attempted to dig through the mountain of pepper as Sombra lost it in the background, nearly falling out of her chair a few times.

Despite not eating much, Lena found herself energized as she helped Amélie carry the bags out to a waiting car. It was the sort of hype that came with it being a gorgeous day (Sunny, bright, and cold, but not freezing.) plus the anticipation of an upcoming mission. A few pedestrians watched the Brit and her blue companion load the trunk of the car with luggage, but to be fair, it wasn't often you saw someone with Amélie's skin tone. The two women piled into the back, which wasn't the worst seating arrangement Lena had ever been in, but she was in close quarters with Widowmaker, just an empty seat between them, the sniper was holding her rifle as per usual. Sombra, who was sitting shotgun, swiveled around and put on her best "stern mother" expression. "Now girls, make sure to keep your hands to yourselves or I'll draw a line on the seat." She threatened playfully. Both Lena and Amélie scowled at her. And then they were off.

The airport was surprisingly uneventful, and soon their plane to Oasis was off, Sombra and Amélie were sitting together, their heads close together as they quietly discussed some kind of strategy Lena was too far away to hear. She glanced around the plane blankly for a moment, eyes flicking from white seats to white walls to white ceilings before finally landing on the sniper again, who was now quietly approaching her with what Lena assumed was information reguarding her part of the mission. The taller woman quietly sat in the seat across from her, her eyes quietly flicking over Lena before she began speaking. "You and I will be working together. I figured you wouldn't find working with Reaper preferable, and that working with her would probably end in something going wrong..." Lena cut her off with a slight shake of the head, a slight grin appearing on her face as Amélie's gaze grew slightly confused. "No, no luv. I'm glad to have the chance to show you up."  
"Oh? You think you'll outperform me?" Amélie's tone was actually somewhat playful, basically temping Lena to say something in rebuttal. "You bet I will! Moira won't even know what hit her."  
"Regrettably, we have to keep her alive, otherwise I'd win on day one." the sniper chuckled, Lena rolling her eyes in response before putting on an intentionally bad French accent, "One shot, One kill. Unless you're Lena. Then I can't hit you for shit." The sniper scowled lightly, a reminder that she still wasn't quite aquatinted with when others were joking with her. Lena held her hands up in defense and leaned back in her seat slightly, worried about what the taller woman would do. "It was a joke, luv."  
"Well I'm not laughing."  
"You don't have to take everything so seriously! You're not some Talon grunt anymore!" Lena snapped, sitting upright so suddenly that it caused the Frenchwoman to recoil slightly. Amélie scowled lightly, her tone practically dripping with an unseen venom. "I was my own woman from the minute I was made into Widowmaker. I don't understand what you fools don't get about that." She hissed, grabbing the armrests of the seats quite tightly. It was clear she was restraining herself, but Lena was too annoyed to care. "Because you're not Widowmaker! You're Amélie Lacroix. A ballerina, a sniper, and an overall-"  
Amélie seemed to have had enough, and her hand flew from where it was clenched around the seat to her rifle, she then aimed the gun at her, scowling still.

For a minute, they just stared at each other, Amélie's eyes simmering with a quiet rage that Lena was certain mirrored her own. Then suddenly, it seemed to fade, and she released the rifle from her grip. The gun fell to the floor of the plane with a soft thud, causing Sombra to peek around the seat she was sitting in to see what had happened, or maybe to see if Lena was dead. Even more surprisingly, the sniper started laughing bitterly, a laugh of remorse that was so foreign coming from her lips that it took Lena a moment to process that this was indeed still Amélie, and not some demon that had possessed her.

"What's so funny, luv?" Her own voice was uncharacteristically quiet and hesitant, she was afraid that if it was anything else it might ruin whatever Amélie was experiencing. And something told her it'd be for the better if she didn't. The sniper's laughing continued as she looked at her, the other woman eventually folding her hands neatly in her lap. "I just find it funny, how we have fought so many times, and yet I can't bring myself to pull the trigger."  
Lena's heart gave a small jump in something that she thought was a mix of relief and shock. "Wait- you're attached to me?"  
"Non. I'd still smile if you came up dead, I think it's more like.. I don't come across people who can hold their own against me often. It's even more rare that I come across them again. I suppose I don't want to kill you since I cannot easily replace you with a worthy opponent." At least five names of people who could definitely give Widowmaker a hard time flew into the Brit's mind, but she didn't say anything. Just giving Amélie a quiet nod of understanding instead. Like it or not, she'd be hard pressed to find someone who gave her as much as a challenge the sniper did as well. She smiled softly, causing the sniper to tilt her head to the side questioningly, golden eyes fixated on her in anticipation of what she was to say next. "I guess we can upgrade to friendly rivals now?"  
"Is that really an upgrade, chérie?"  
"Well, we're working together. And you guys don't look all that eager to kill me-"  
"I was joking." The sniper grinned slightly, causing Lena to roll her eyes and look out of the window. It was obnoxiously bright outside, and not many clouds were floating about so she had no choice but to avert her gaze back to the still grinning sniper. The grin quickly melted back into casual indifference, both Lena and Amélie then returning to their respective thoughts beforehand.

"Hey, amigas! We're landing in five." Sombra called to them, looking up from the various screens she had been working on since she and Amélie finished their conversation, both women nodded to her, busily gathering everything they had out before taking their seats and waiting for the airplane to finish the trip.

Despite Oasis's various advancements, Lena was shocked at how hot it could get. She would think they would put some kind of cooling system outside to make walking more tolerable, but apparently that wasn't high on their 'to-do' list. Amélie and Sombra didn't seem all that bothered as the three walked, Sombra even seemed at home in the sweltering heat. The smaller woman wiped some sweat from her brow, casting a glare to her companions infront of her, "Are you two even human?" Sombra and Amélie gave her identical smug grins. "I grew up in Mexico, Amiga. The only cold you get is during the night." Sombra explained, turning back to walk.  
"I just choose to ignore it." Amélie added unhelpfully, tailing after her companion and leaving Lena to gather her stuff. The few pedestrians, primarily students and employees scuttling about the city, paid them no heed, though one young-looking student did stop to stare at Amélie in either amazement or deep analysis, Lena wasn't sure which.

Their hotel was surprisingly upscale, with lavish red carpets, ornately painted walls, and an almost entirely Omnic staff aiding in taking in their bags, administering their room keys, and directing them towards the correct floor amongst other things. "Aren't they amazing?" Sombra asked, eyeing a robot that looked surprisingly like some of those that wandered around Kings Row. "I hear some of the students that go to the nearby university program all the Omnic staff." The hacker explained, dropping back a little and subtly sliding a paper into Lena's hand. She seemed to have done the same thing to Amélie prior to this, as the sniper's free hand was curled around something Lena couldn't see. "I wrote directions to the restaurant we're going to later on that slip. We already have reservations, don't worry about it. The sniper held up the slip of paper at a rather odd angle, so the text was pointing down instead of up. She read it quickly, nodded, and quietly slipped the paper into her pocket. Once they finished crossing the expansive lobby, Lena did the same.

_This entire building is likely bugged. Don't speak your mind unless you're certain there aren't unwanted ears listening. Assume everyone on the other end is directly in Kahoots with Moira._   
_Your friend, Sombra._

Lena nodded, and quietly crumpled up the strip of paper as Sombra pushed the button to send them up to the suite. The doors opened, Sombra led them to a suite, and opened it. It was your typical two bedroom hotel suite, with a cramped living space as a separate room between the bathroom and two suites. "One of us has to take the couch unless you want to share a bed. Because I'm not." To solidify her point, Sombra set her suitcase down infront of a door, looking at the other two pointedly. Amélie sat down on the couch, a silent message that once again, she'd take one for the team. "No, Amélie. You stayed on the couch last time, take the bed. I'm sure this one folds out anyway." Lena offered, the sniper's expression meeting hers with obvious confusion present. "Good point! She needs to be ready for her examination tomorrow, si?" Both women gave the hacker a confused look, causing Sombra to hand them both papers. "Our ticket to helping our dear friend fix her skin condition." She said cheerily, but both papers at the bottom read

_This is our ticket to directly reach Moira in the fastest amount of time. Gabriel and I will be ready to come in as soon as you can get her somewhat alone. You have exactly ONE chance. Don't. Fuck. It. Up._

_Lena, I don't care what happens after this, but if one hair on Amélie's head is harmed by that she-demon, you have me to answer to._

"Ah, right, that examination." Amélie smiled stiffly, "It'll be nice to seem more human, oui?" Lena nodded, giving her an equally stiff smile, "Yeah luv, we worked hard for it. It's about time you got something besides the short end of the stick anyways." As the two began to unpack their things; Lena wasn't certain, but she swore she saw Amélie smile at her softly after she said that, and it was by far one of the prettiest things she'd ever seen from the sniper.

That evening, after they had eaten and Sombra had retired to do some work before she fell asleep, Sniper and Pilot were sitting out on their room's balcony. The former with a glass of wine, the latter opting out on the expensive taste of her companion. The balcony was not unlike the one the former had broken into just last night. Amélie watched the distant lights of the city, of the rushing cars, and the dim twinkle of the stars above for a while, then looked over at Lena, "Why are you still out here?" It seemed more confused than hostile, Amélie slowly raising an eyebrow as she awaited a response. "I wanted some air, luv. And you're not bad company when you're not trying to shoot someone." She replied, Amélie seeming even more skeptical than she was before. "I'm not a conversationalist. It's not vital to my work." She huffed lightly, leaning back in the hotel's chair, her ponytail flopping over the edge of her shoulder to dangle loosely in the space beyond. "Y'know, when you get past the whole brainwashing thing, it doesn't seem like such a bad job if it can afford you a castle." She offered, the sniper's face furrowing in thought before she looked back at Lena. "They didn't buy me that residence. They were reluctant to let me go out on missions alone, I doubt they'd buy me a castle regardless. I inherited it from my parents." The Frenchwoman explained, her gaze seeming surprisingly disinterested for a woman talking about people Lena presumed she hadn't seen in ages. "You still in touch with your folks?"  
"They're dead. At least, I think they are. I don't remember." She replied solemnly, sitting up in her seat to once again focus on the traffic in the distance. If she didn't know any better, Lena would've sworn Amélie was trying to calm herself down, but she knew it was probably the sniper's pride getting the better of her.  
"Blimey. That must suck. Goin' out into a world where you don't have anyone." Lena trailed off, taking the newfound silence from her companion as a sign to stop before she aggravated the other.

Suddenly, a laugh; short, forced, and bitter slipped from the other's lips. Amélie stood from her chair, "Do you think I not realize that? Knowing them, it was probably intentional. Because God forbid their precious weapon have anything besides them." A loud crash echoed into the night, both women looking down to see the wineglass in a million fragmented pieces, what was left of the red liquid inside oozing from the glass like blood. Amélie just stared at it for a moment, then quietly took her seat, the apparent disdain she felt vanishing as quickly as it appeared. "Forgive me. I shouldn't have been so outspoken." Her voice was steadied, Widowmaker's façade piecing itself together before more could be said. Lena cautiously rested her hand on the woman's shoulder. It was surprisingly tense, but Amélie made no move to rid of her hand. "What happened to me, Lena?" An odd question, especially with the nonchalant tone, but both she and Amelie sat in silence for a while longer, pondering over the answer to the same question until eventually Lena decided to get some rest, wished the other woman a good night, and retreated into the room to sleep.

She wasn't sure if or when Amélie did the same, and for once in her life, a thought made her feel very slight feelings of concern for the sniper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof this is late, but next up will be the small Christmas chapter I have planned since it's already in the works. Happy holidays you guys!


	7. 7. Forgiveness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this belated, brief chapter, Our heroines finally confront Moira, and find that she's not as black and white as they think.

Breakfast the next morning was ate in absolute silence. The kind that quietly blanketed a room and yet wasn't entirely unwelcome, it let the inhabitant's minds wander without the added complication of navigating through a conversation that could very easily go to hell and back considering the situation the women were in. Lena was picking at her food from where she sat on her bed, an odd detail considering all she had to do was stand with Amélie when the time came. Sombra had already eaten her meal and retreated to the bathroom (Where she insisted that Oasis' apparent Utopean like surveillance of its citzens wouldn't be present, or otherwise easily explained away by a faulty water pipe should said surveillance "mysteriously" go out.), where she was engaged in a quiet conversation with Reaper, in Spanish obviously, Amélie could only understand a handful of the phrases she exchanged with him. As for her? She wasn't sure what to feel about this whole thing. Or if she was feeling. Normally before a mission like this she would almost be excited or rather, be experiencing it's close impostor of anticipation. But now, something seemed to be balancing out her usual pseudo-emotion. Something foreign to her, but not entirely unwelcome. Something that she..

"Hey, Amélie?" Her thought was cut off by Lena's voice, the sniper focusing her attention on the Brit, who was still half heartedly pushing her food around. "What is it, Oxton?" She raised an eyebrow, setting her mostly empty plate to the side to be collected. "I'm afraid." Her voice didn't seem to be lying. "Of what, Lena? You have the easy job." The sniper stated, Lena looking up at her with a slightly frustrated look. "Of this thing failing. Of you know who snapping her fingers and suddenly you're gone and all that's left in your place is-" Amélie scowled, Lena's expression instantly shifting from frustration to a quiet concern. Amélie's own voice dropped to a quiet growl, clearly unsettling the woman sitting across from her. "For the /last/ time. I am /NOT/ the woman she was. I will be fine." With that, feeling the conversation was dropped from the way Lena just stared at her; Amélie returned to contemplating her plan.

Perfect timing, as Sombra was just about wrapped up. "Alright, amigas, our other friend will be here shortly. Meanwhile, you two need to start heading over there!" She said almost too cheerily for Amélie's liking, but the Latina was already collecting the plates from her and Lena, and nudging the two women to the door. Lena quietly accepted her fate and began the walk down the hall, but Amélie paused, turning to look back at the other woman. "We'll be there, I promise." For a moment, Sombra was dead serious, her violet gaze drilling into Amélie's golden one, then the next, the hotel's door was slammed into her face, leaving Amélie to catch up to Lena.

"I don't know what about it unnerves me, luv, but this city gives me a chill." Lena mumbled no less than five minutes later as the two women were walking towards where Sombra arranged for a chauffeur to pick them up. "I don't see what about it makes you cold. It's quite hot out here." She replied, earning a slight scowl from the Brit, "You know what I mean! Something about this place is just.. off." Lena shot a glance around her, then looked up at the sniper, "Don't you agree?"  
"I don't particularly care, so no, if anything here is out of the ordinary or extremely messed up, I haven't noticed." That seemed to shut Lena up for a moment as Amélie quietly scanned the area around them, once, twice, three times. Just like Talon taught her. "Shouldn't our ride be coming up?" Lena quietly fretted, edging closer to the sniper, "She said it'd be right there." Amélie sighed almost inaudibly, flicking Lena on the forehead with a slight scowl. "Focus. If this were a serious operation, you'd be long dead by now." She mumbled, her eyes flicking forward as the sound of a car approaching caught her attention, Lena's worries entirely forgotten. The car itself was solid black, and looked quite expensive, the windows were tinted, which Amélie wasn't quite sure if it was meant to protect the occupants from the heat, or to shield their identities from the outside world. Either way, she was grateful. The car made a full stop, but instead of the chauffeur stepping out, one of the back doors opened, and a woman Amélie had been dreading to see stepped out instead.

Moira O'Deorain was as tall as ever, even looming over Amélie by a few inches, atop her head she wore some kind of ridiculous headpiece, which did something to cover her dyed pink hair. Her sleeves were coated in a fabric almost looked and shimmered exactly like a miniature version of the night sky, and the former metal plate around her blue eye was replaced by a pinkish line that traced around it instead. Moira smiled politely at them, giving the two women a curt bow before gesturing to the car. "Lacroix, I hope life has been treating you well. And how have you been, Oxton? Don't think we've talked since before Blackwatch fell. Please, take a seat. We have much to discuss." She said, but despite how calm she seemed, Amélie was already tense. She and Lena exchanged a look before the two women slowly gave in, and hoped Sombra had things as under control as she said she did. The two slid into the back of the car, taking a seat on one side, while Moira followed them, closing the door and taking a seat on the other. She crossed her legs, causally rapping on the small panel of glass between their compartment and the driver's, then turned back to the two women as the car began moving again. "I'm sure you have questions, so make them fast." Moira said, her voice losing a tiny bit of the charisma it held when she initially greeted them outside. Lena instantly spoke up, "How did you get here so fast unless Sombra sent you?? What is your intention here?? Why did you hurt Amélie-" Moira held up a hand, Lena slowly shutting her mouth and waiting for the other woman to speak. "Your hacker is right, the majority of this city, or at least where outsiders may visit unrestricted, is bugged. And you in particular are terrible at talking discreetly. I only had to get here before the ride my former colleague arranged, and the rest is done." She explained, giving Lena a pointed look. "As for my "intentions"? I fear you have me all wrong, Oxton. I don't pick sides based on my personal morals of good and bad. I pick sides based on how much lenience they give for my experiments. In other words, I'm here to do simply what you want me to. To 'fix' Widowmaker." Lena scowled slightly, opening her mouth again, but Moira cut her off, "Talon was useful, and yes, I do regret losing Amélie as a subject for observation, but something tells me that she'd be less cooperative now than she was back then. After all, I'm no longer officially her superior." Amélie gave her a curt nod, which the woman seemed to appreciate as she hurriedly began talking again. "And once again, you have it all wrong, Oxton. I deal in /Genetics/. Which is hardly the same thing as neuroscience. Besides, I was hired after Widowmaker was already..." Lena cut her off, "Then why haven't you done anything about it before if you take no sides? And why offer help now?"

Both Amélie and Moira shot her an annoyed glance, which the Irishwoman noticed, and laughed quietly about. "It's simple Oxton, my current position makes me a minister at one of the most prestigious schools in the world. In order to stay on top, I must continue working on new advancements. If I 'miraculously' cure some 'rare genetic problem' with Lacroix here, my reputation will go through the roof." She smiled coldly at Lena, "Unless you've changed your mind." The Brit scowled, "Ask the woman you'll be cutting open, not me." Moira raised an eyebrow, then turned her gaze to Amélie, which the sniper instantly regretted making eye contact with, "What will it be then, Lacroix? Shall I fix your little problem and you can go back to the life you once had, or would you rather keep the enhancements made?" Amélie thought to herself for a moment, both Lena and Moira's gazes on her, "I think.. I would like to..." Both women leaned on the edge of their seats, eagerly awaiting the sniper's reply. A good minute or so passed before Amélie spoke, "I want to remain like I am. If that's alright." Moira almost seemed dissapointed, but nodded quietly, as if she were suspecting that would be Amélie's reply. "Clever girl, to keep the enhancements they gave you. Very well then. I'll have the driver drop you two at one of my favorite restaurants. I'm sure that miscreant of a hacker can deal with the rest of your transportation." Moira then rapped on the glass separating her from the driver, mumbled something in what Amélie assumed was Arabic, and quietly readjusted herself before looking out the window. It appeared that the woman was through with them. And somehow, Amélie found she didn't mind leaving it that way.

"Do ya really think she would've done it? Fixed you without messing anything else up further?" Lena asked, long after Moira had left the two infront of a rather upscale restaurant they eventually opted not to dine at. "Don't know, don't care. But I suppose our work is done." Was her quiet reply, though her mind was still reeling from the whole sequence of things."But.. She could've.." Amélie turned to the other woman, quietly holding up a hand. The Brit looked conflicted, it was only her job to offer some comfort. If one could call what she gave comfort. "It's who I am now. I don't need the skin tone or eye color I once had to make me more like myself." She muttered, facing forward again. "Though.. I do wonder where this whole thing is taking me. I just wanted to be my own woman again. But here I am, chasing ghosts of my past just like I was back at Talon." She laughed quietly, turning to face the other woman, Lena tilting her head slightly in response. "I suppose it's just what I have to deal with now." She murmured, Lena rapidly shaking her head afterwards, "No! No, not at all. Amélie, if you want to just go home and be left alone, I'm sure you'd just have to tell Sombra. She'd probably understand." Her tone was somewhat encouraging, but Amélie shook her head, " _Non_. I chose this path for myself. I will see it through to the end." And with that, the sniper picked up her pace, leaving the Brit behind to think about what she had just said. 

Sombra found them within the hour, Reaper standing by her side like a silent bodyguard. "So, I see you two opted for the lunch date." Amélie scowled lightly, Lena wearing an almost identical expression to hers. "What? You two never showed up at the university. I just felt obliged to check up on you guys." She smiled sweetly, but Reaper crossed his arms, and stared at Amélie, "Where's Moira?" The sniper bit her lip, then shrugged at him. "Don't know. She left after I declined her offer." Sombra suddenly seemed more interested, "Which was..?" "Wouldn't you like to know, Fantóme?" Amélie chuckled quietly, earning a slight grin from Lena from the dumbfounded expression on Sombra's face. Even Reaper seemed slightly amused by this. "Fine. I see how it is, Araña." Sombra rolled her eyes, pretending to be pouty while Reaper slowly shifted his attention from Amélie to Lena. "Where is Moira?" He asked yet again, his tone practically a growl as he did so. Lena shrugged, "Luv, she's not an entirely bad person. Not the best, and we could certainly arrest her, but she seemed civil when we talked to her." Reaper huffed, "I suppose I'll find her myself then.. Amélie may have spared her, but I still have a bone to pick." Amélie was used to watching him fade into the shadows, but this time just seemed much more ominous.

"So... You two ladies ready to go back?"

Turns out, "back" means back to the airport, where the two women were quickly shuttled onto a plane and back to their respective home towns. Amélie spent most of her flight contemplating Lena's sudden attachment to her, albeit a small one, and one that could easily shatter, but still an attachment. Which was something that she wasn't quite used to, after all...  
All she's ever been treated as was an object. It was almost weird to be seen as anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the next one will be longer, and hopefully or better quality, but can't say when I'll get around to publishing it. Right now this story is on my back burner while I work on a very complicated DnD campaign.


End file.
